The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics has ended.
Still, it’s disgraceful the Winter Olympics even took place in China. Any country with more than 1 million people in concentration camps deserves global condemnation — not the right to host a global sporting event. Some people rightfully boycotted the games. However, it’s not the only global sporting event this year that’s worth boycotting. We should also boycott the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
The international soccer tournament arrives in Qatar this November. But Qatar is another country that deserves condemnation from the rest of the world.
Qatar has little respect for human rights. More than 6,500 migrant construction workers have died working on infrastructures to accommodate the 2022 games, according to a February 2021 report. These people were from countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Evidence also exists that Qatar uses slave labor to build new soccer stadiums. The world should not do anything to legitimize a country that uses slave labor.
Outside of the way it conducts infrastructure projects, Qatar has many problems. It’s a state sponsor of terrorism, as many have argued. Qatar has given money to terrorists in Syria and Libya, including al Qaeda-linked groups.
Other concerns?
In Qatar, homosexuality comes with a prison sentence, but marital rape and domestic violence are somehow not criminal offenses. And unmarried adult women under the age of 25 require a male parent’s permission to travel out of the country.
Unfortunately, since he didn’t fully boycott the Olympics when it took place in a country where there’s an active genocide going on, a country supporting terrorism might not move President Joe Biden to action either. Even so, consumers have power. They can punish FIFA for making this awful decision and make sponsors regret their financial support for the games.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts. He is also a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.
