The AFL-CIO, a coalition of 57 labor unions in the US, is pushing for human rights and labor guarantees from FIFA as the soccer federation gets closer to picking host cities for the 2026 World Cup.
In January 2021, the AFL-CIO sent a letter to FIFA asking for certain guarantees and standards, but were not satisfied with the response sent by the federation the following month.
“It was really just a superficial response. There were no initial commitments, no serious commitment to engaging us,” Director of AFL-CIO’s International Department Cathy Feingold told The Guardian.
The AFL-CIO is demanding fair living wages, workplace and safety protections, local hiring, limits on temporary work, strong investigation and enforcements and guarantees of workers being given a voice, among other requests.
“Despite FIFA’s dismal track record on human and workers' rights, we have approached them and their bidding cities in good faith, calling on them to ensure worker health and safety protections, provide fair wages and give workers a voice,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in the public letter sent to FIFA. “However, FIFA has made no clear commitments on how it will meet its obligation to protect workers and communities in the planning and execution of the 2026 World Cup.”
FIFA has taken considerable flak over recent iterations of the World Cup. In the 2014 Brazil games, thousands were forcibly displaced to make room for stadiums for the World Cup and 2016 Olympics.
The 2022 Qatar games are set to kick off this November, but FIFA and Qatar have been accused of human rights violations already, including forced labor, sustenance wages, exorbitant “recruitment fees” and other violations. As of 2021, more than 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since it was awarded the World Cup and authorities have failed to investigate in any meaningful way.
Likely due to the criticism levied at FIFA for the treatment of migrant labor in Qatar, the 2026 games are the first in which FIFA officially considered human rights as one of its standards when picking host cities. Labor rights groups, however, say that is not enough.
“If FIFA is serious about its commitment to human rights, worker protection and fair labor practices,” Shuler said, “the organization must engage with human rights stakeholders during the site visits, and must put in place, for itself and for host cities, robust and comprehensive human rights plans.”
Qatar as a country has a record of mistreatment of migrant workers in conditions that border on slavery. While labor laws would prevent a repeat of that in the US, the AFL-CIO wants to ensure that FIFA does not simply meet the minimum standard required by federal law and instead supports the labor that make the games possible.
“What we’re talking about here is meaningful standards — not the federal minimum,” Lee Stieb, the research and policy specialist of the international affairs team of the AFL-CIO told Common Dreams.
The 2026 World Cup is more than four years away, but according to the AFL-CIO, this is when contract bids are awarded and why it is essential that they be heard now.
The World Cup does bring in money and economic opportunity for host cities, but due to the large expense of building new stadiums that are often left unused after the games and massive tax breaks for FIFA, host countries spend more than they gain by hosting the World Cup, according to some economists.
FIFA generated an estimated $3.5 billion in profit for itself during the 2018 World Cup, a number expected to be surpassed this year in Qatar.