Mr. Gianni Infantino
President
Federation Internationale de Football Association
FIFA-Strasse 20
P.O. Box 8044
Zurich, Switzerland
15 December 2022
Dear President Gianni Infantino
We are writing to you as a group of Nepali organisations that have, for many years, worked to document and highlight the exploitation faced by many of our compatriots in Qatar and in other countries across the Gulf.
As you know, hundreds of thousands of Nepalis have travelled to Qatar since FIFA awarded the World Cup in 2010, seeking better employment opportunities they are unable to find at home. They have built the stadiums, roads, metro lines and hotels that have made the 2022 World Cup possible. For some, this has provided the means to support families back home. For many others, it has led to debt, poverty and abuse.
Our concerns for the rights of Nepalis in Qatar did not start when FIFA awarded the World Cup and will not end when the tournament is over. The stories of stolen wages and broken dreams are part of our everyday life. We are far too familiar with images of coffins arriving at Tribhuvan International airport.
We have welcomed promises of reform in Qatar but we know that workers remain at the mercy of ruinous recruitment fees and still lack guarantees that they will earn decent wages, work in safe conditions and be treated with dignity. Illegal fees are still charged, days off are refused, bodies still return without explanation.
Yes, this World Cup has eventually brought some change. But it will be ‘too little, too late’ for thousands of our compatriots who returned home after having lost so much to make your tournament possible. It would be unforgiveable for you to continue to ignore their plight, and to deny their right to compensation. The pain suffered over the last decade cannot be reduced to numbers or statistics – they are workers who have lost their life savings, children who have lost their education, families who has lost their sons, fathers, brothers and husbands. Their losses are real and cannot be dismissed.
We know that Qatar has recently set up a fund to compensate workers who can prove in court they have had wages stolen, but we also know from our own experience that this fund is next to impossible to access once a worker has left the country and even for those in Qatar as they are scared of facing possible negative repercussions on them from their employers or the authority for filing complaints. We know too that this fund does not compensate families of loved ones whose deaths were never recognised as being linked to their work. Unless this changes, thousands of people who contributed to Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup will continue to be denied what should rightfully be theirs.
We therefore call on you, President Infantino, to stop looking the other way while the citizens of our country – and all other nationalities – are denied their rights. Instead, we call on you to ‘focus on the workers’ and use all the financial and political resources at your disposal to set up a programme to compensate workers and their families who lost so much so that others – including FIFA – may win.
Yours Sincerely,
Accountability Lab, Nepal
Accountability Watch Committee, Nepal
Amnesty International Nepal
Inhured International Nepal
Justice and Rights Institute (JuRI) Nepal
National Network for Safe Migration (NNSM)
Equidem Nepal