World Cup sponsors should pressurise Qatar 2022 over workers, says MP

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/18/fifa-tory-mp-damian-collins-world-cup-qatar

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Damian Collins, the Conservative MP and Fifa reform campaigner, has warned that big-name sponsors of the World Cup will have “blood on their hands” if they fail to pressure the 2022 host country, Qatar, to improve conditions for migrant workers.

Launching a campaign calling on Fifa’s sponsors to make a public stand in an effort to force the Qatari authorities to reform the kafala system that ties workers to their employers, members of the NewFifaNow group and the International Trade Union Confederation (Ituc)said world football’s governing body had the power to force change “overnight” if it chose to.

“If workers are dying Fifa has blood on its hands, as do these sponsors, for as long as they turn a blind eye to what’s going on there,” said Collins. “It’s time we raise our voices. People should demand more action is taken.”

Jaimie Fuller, the chairman of the sportswear brand Skins, who led a successful campaign to reform world cycling’s governing body, said he had twice written to all eight of Fifa’s top-tier sponsors over the issue but had yet to receive a reply.

Having travelled to Qatar to obtain evidence of the squalid conditions in which many of the country’s 1.4m migrant workers live, Fuller said the sponsors – Adidas, Gazprom, Hyundai, Kia, McDonalds, Budweiser, Coca-Cola and Visa – were failing to live up to their own published values.

“What it says is that their moral code is lacking any kind of compass we can endorse,” said Sharan Burrow, the Ituc general secretary. “They won’t escape scrutiny. The reputational risk for these companies is extraordinary. There’s no doubt that these companies themselves could help to change Fifa. They’ve got a choice. We hope they make it.”

Fuller said that if the companies fail to engage then the next step could be to call for a boycott of their products.

Stephen Russell, from the TUC-backed fan campaign Playfair Qatar, said:“Fifa can change laws to sell beers, but not to save lives. Sponsoring the World Cup with conditions as they are makes as much sense as sponsoring an oil slick.”The group argued that Fifa had failed to use its leverage to secure meaningful reform for workers building the infrastructure to host the World Cup and that its sponsors were ducking the issue.

“If McDonalds beef cattle lived in those conditions, you wouldn’t buy their burgers,” said Collins. “Why should they expect the men who are building the facilities that will host a tournament they sponsor to be living in those conditions as well. The same applies for the rest of the sponsors as well.”