Should Scotland Join the Qatar Protests

[FilipinoHibs]

https://www.goal.com/en/news/netherlands-join-germany-norway-in-making-qatar-human-rights/cirepzsf5gd11pkqjhsdfh5d8

[NGP]

These protests are just tokenism, if football associations and players are serious about their commitment to human rights, they would resuse to go to Qatar or withdraw from the tournament.

[jgl07]

Qatar are not perfect, rather like the UAE, but in the League Table of Human Rights abusers they are way down the list. Way behind the likes of China, Iran and even Trump’s USA.

[monteddie]

[QUOTE=jgl07;6509830]Qatar are not perfect, rather like the UAE, but in the League Table of Human Rights abusers they are way down the list. Way behind the likes of China, Iran and even Trump’s USA.[/QUO
This tournament will take place.The brown envelopes collected by FIFA executives before the finals were awarded will ensure they go ahead. Unfortunately the protests today are a little to late.

[PompeyHibs]

Football should have nothing to do with politics!
Its a sport for enjoyment and should not be used as a vehicle to change the world.
Lets hope we qualify for the WC

Sky sports news is getting more like the normal main stream news channels than a sports channel these days - very annoying! Stick to show casing sporting events and giving out the results as plenty other channels to choose from to watch depressing stuff on

[FilipinoHibs]

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Football should have nothing to do with politics!
Its a sport for enjoyment and should not be used as a vehicle to change the world.
Lets hope we qualify for the WC

Sky sports news is getting more like the normal main stream news channels than a sports channel these days - very annoying! Stick to show casing sporting events and giving out the results as plenty other channels to choose from to watch depressing stuff on

There is a direct relationship between the World Cup, building of stadiums and and the deaths of thousands of migrant workers. You can't separate that.

[lord bunberry]

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There is a direct relationship between the World Cup, building of stadiums and and the deaths of thousands of migrant workers. You can't separate that.

Is it really thousands of workers that have died? If that’s true the World Cup should be moved somewhere else.

[hibsbollah]

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Is it really thousands of workers that have died? If that’s true the World Cup should be moved somewhere else.

6500 dead. Almost definitely an underestimate. Many of them worked to death, passports taken off them on arrival, slave wages.

[lord bunberry]

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6500 dead. Almost definitely an underestimate. Many of them worked to death, passports taken off them on arrival, slave wages.

That’s appalling, no way should a country treating people that way be considered suitable to hold such a prestigious event. The tournament should be moved to England.

[WhileTheChief..]

21st century slavery going on right under everyone’s noses but barely a peep from anyone for years.

Where’s the street protests? Asian lives don’t matter as much?

[hibsbollah]

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21st century slavery going on right under everyone’s noses but barely a peep from anyone for years.

Where’s the street protests? Asian lives don’t matter as much?

Yep. Life for a Bangladeshi in Qatar probably isn’t that different from a Uighur in a camp. Work all hours of the day, getting abused and the ****ers still not paying me.

[WhileTheChief..]

It’s actual slavery we’re talking about here.

Tournament should be moved but I’d love to see numerous countries just stay away, including Scotland if we qualify.

[Just_Jimmy]

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It’s actual slavery we’re talking about here.

Tournament should be moved but I’d love to see numerous countries just stay away, including Scotland if we qualify.

problem is it would really take the big countries likely to win it, such as Brazil, Germany, France and dare I say it, England.

Scotland should also make it clear we'll not take part if we qualify which would be gutting, however alone, no one would even notice.

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[Ozyhibby]

Wearing t-shirts is pointless. We should refuse to go if we qualify. Even my 14 year old thinks that and he is desperate to see us in a World Cup.


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[WhileTheChief..]

It would put huge pressure on England though, I’d have thought?

It would certainly cause ripples around the world and make people talk. That would at least be a start.

[Dmas]

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Wearing t-shirts is pointless. We should refuse to go if we qualify. Even my 14 year old thinks that and he is desperate to see us in a World Cup.


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I don’t see why bother with qualifying once one team pulls out the rest will follow, everyone except fifa and Qatar will benefit from just stopping the 2022 World Cup now

[basehibby]

It's a tricky one as, arguably, we should be protesting against ourselves right now as part of the UK - for being the only major supplier of bombs to Saudi for dropping on Yemen and therefore killing thousands of innocents on an ongoing basis. And then we could protest our next opponents - Israel - for the nation's ongoing illegal actions against the Palestinians - and for that matter, should we protest Hibs for playing Rocky???

Historically though you could probably have made a similar argument for most WC Finals - and not just for the home nations either.

The WC Finals should never have been given to Qatar anyway because 1) the requirement to move about the seasons of about 90% of the leagues on the planet to accommodate it and 2) Because Qatar's contribution to football over the years has been SOD ALL - outside of the brown envelopes they must have stuffed into FIFA pockets to gain this WC of course.

So - ultimately such protests could be seen as hypocritical. I don't think in any case that it's the place of Football Associations to make grandiose political gestures so, if you believe the WC should be protested or boycotted it's your MP you should be lobbying rather than the SFA.

[The Pointer]

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Football should have nothing to do with politics!
Its a sport for enjoyment and should not be used as a vehicle to change the world.
Lets hope we qualify for the WC

Sky sports news is getting more like the normal main stream news channels than a sports channel these days - very annoying! Stick to show casing sporting events and giving out the results as plenty other channels to choose from to watch depressing stuff on

Absolutely spot on. Keep politics out of sport and let politicians deal with it. Sport plays it's part by just going ahead and giving pleasure to millions without a 'message'.

[WhileTheChief..]

Slaves are being used for this tournament to go ahead.

Thought it was worth repeating.

You think that’s only a ‘message’??

[Centre Hawf]

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Football should have nothing to do with politics!
Its a sport for enjoyment and should not be used as a vehicle to change the world.
Lets hope we qualify for the WC

Sky sports news is getting more like the normal main stream news channels than a sports channel these days - very annoying! Stick to show casing sporting events and giving out the results as plenty other channels to choose from to watch depressing stuff on

Football, and sport in general, is a fantastic platform to raise awareness of the mistreatment of those who cannot speak for themselves. If being reminded of how horrible this world can be to certain demographics of people is upsetting to you then be thankful you're not one of the people living through it.

[gbhibby]

Surely Hugh fines coming for these countries if FIFA have the same rules on political gestures as UEFA.

[Keith_M]

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These protests are just tokenism, if football associations and players are serious about their commitment to human rights, they would resuse to go to Qatar or withdraw from the tournament.

[Keith_M]

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Wearing t-shirts is pointless. We should refuse to go if we qualify. Even my 14 year old thinks that and he is desperate to see us in a World Cup.


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That's my view as well.

I think the biggest protest any team could make is to qualify then refuse to go.

[MWHIBBIES]

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These protests are just tokenism, if football associations and players are serious about their commitment to human rights, they would resuse to go to Qatar or withdraw from the tournament.

They're not tokenism. They are serious and its good. Withdrawing from the tournament would have much less effect than going to it and highlighting the abuses there. I hope they qualifiy and keep the protest up.

[Keith_M]

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They're not tokenism. They are serious and its good. Withdrawing from the tournament would have much less effect than going to it and highlighting the abuses there. I hope they qualifiy and keep the protest up.

I'd imagine that a country that qualified for the tournament and then refused to go on principle, would have a much bigger effect than some players wearing T-Shirts with a message on it (even if it is well intentioned).

[MWHIBBIES]

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I'd imagine that a country that qualified for the tournament and then refused to go on principle, would have a much bigger effect than some players wearing T-Shirts with a message on it (even if it is well intentioned).

Well, that all depends on the coverage. They could easily just brush over a country not coming. A protest infront of millions of TV has more effect.

[Centre Hawf]

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I'd imagine that a country that qualified for the tournament and then refused to go on principle, would have a much bigger effect than some players wearing T-Shirts with a message on it (even if it is well intentioned).

I think both are valid routes. A country refusing to go could be a massive story at the time but once the tournament rolls round let's be honest it would be fairly forgotten about and at best only brought up when the team replacing them plays instead. If for example Haaland or Mbappe scored a 92nd minute winner against Spain and ripped his top off to reveal something underneath in protest that would certainly send shockwaves as well.

There is no one answer to fixing any of societies problems, consistent conversation and acts like this CAN help in the long term and apply pressure where it matters. What doesn't help is batting down smaller individual acts as tokenism and moving on. The same way that people kept saying that taking the knee before a game wasn't going to solve racism, of course it isn't. But has the conversation been magnified in that time? Definitely. Does more need to be done alongside it? Absolutely.

[Fisherrow Harp]

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They're not tokenism. They are serious and its good. Withdrawing from the tournament would have much less effect than going to it and highlighting the abuses there. I hope they qualifiy and keep the protest up.

I remember a similar argument for the Scotland rugby team going to South Africa during apartheid, I do not buy it.

[CMurdoch]

Sadly people are acting 10 years too late on Qatar.
This was madness from the start.
Wearing t shirts isn't enough. Pressuring FIFA to support the families of workers who died would be a much better start. These were poor people and their families have in many cases lost their breadwinner. FIFA are culpable, given all that has happened was predictable so helping those damaged families financially is the least they can do.

The world has another chance to act now with China but the silence is deafening.
Where were they when hellish genocide was occurring in the former Yugoslavia.

Humans are the only animal that blushes and the only one that needs to.

Bottom line is everything in the world is driven by the love of money, privilege and power.
They don't even try to hide it anymore.
Hell, Trump got elected!!!

[Tommy75]

100% Scotland should not go if they qualify. Although, as someone mentioned further up, it may take one of the 'big' nations to refuse before Fifa and the sponsors actually began to care.

Here we are in 2021, renaming buildings and streets with links to slavery and colonialism well over 100 years ago yet we are prepared to let a country host the world cup (arguably the most high profile sporting event in the world) when the infrastructure has been built on (alleged) slave labour.