The Nordic countries, a common front against the World Cup in Qatar

Hostile to the World Cup dispute in a year in Qatar, the federations of the Nordic countries carry out an offensive to achieve commitments by Doha and the FIFA in favor of migrant workers in the emirate.

Together with the NGO Amnesty International, the associations of the five neighboring countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland) have been trying to put pressure on for months, although their initiative remains for the moment isolated among the 211 FIFA federations.

“In the Danish federation (DBU) we are against the World Cup in Qatar, we believe that it was a bad decision for several reasons; because of the human rights situation, the environment, the construction of new stadiums ”, explains Jakob Jensen, director of the DBU.

T-shirts with messages

On the front line, his federation systematically publishes the emails addressed to FIFA by the club of five, and organizes meetings with Qatari officials, such as in mid-October with the secretary general of the organizing committee Hassan Al-Thawadi.

In fact, it has just reached an agreement with the sponsors so that Denmark’s training jerseys – the only one classified directly from the five (Sweden will play playoffs) – show “critical messages” during the tournament.

The issue of the conditions of migrant workers in Qatar is their main demand.

Doha claims to have done more in this regard than any other country in the region and firmly rejects the records of thousands of deaths in works carried out by international media. But there are more thorny issues.

During the meeting with Al-Thawadi, “we asked him questions like: ‘Will homosexuals be allowed to attend the World Cup? Will men and women be able to watch the games together? Will the press have access to all kinds of issues to carry out investigations in the country? ‘”Says Jensen.

“To all these questions he answered ‘yes’. So we are going to hold him responsible for it ”, he adds.

In Norway, the issue culminated in a referendum organized by football authorities on a possible boycott.

The initiative was finally rejected (368 votes against, 121 in favor) and in any case Erling Haaland and his colleagues failed to qualify.

But the federation is sticking to implement the recommendations of an expert report that called for 26 measures to put pressure on Doha and FIFA.

Contradictions

These include the creation of a resource center for migrant workers in Qatar or the implementation of an alert system to detect serious rights violations and make them public outside the country’s borders.

But the combat of the Nordic countries is not without contradictions. As is the case with the Danish fan who had to keep a banner against the World Cup in Qatar last month at the Copenhagen stadium, in order to respect FIFA’s ban on political messages.

In Sweden, the federation withdrew in September from its national team’s winter tour in Qatar, which had sparked controversy since its announcement in 2019.

The decision was taken under pressure from the clubs, surprised by the hypocrisy of going to play for a promotional event in the emirate, while the president of the federation Håkan Sjöstrand claims to be at the forefront of the battle with his Nordic colleagues.

“We hope that these efforts with our Nordic neighbors will have an impact among other countries,” says Mats Enquist, general secretary of the Swedish club organization.

And the players themselves have also joined the cause, like Finnish captain Tim Sparv who took the side of Amnesty International.

For its part, FIFA rarely expresses itself in this regard. “We know there is still work, but we must recognize the significant progress made in a very short time” by Qatar, its president Gianni Infantino said in May.