Worker welfare, challenges for hosting 2022 World Cup

Hassan al-Thawadi, secretary-general of the Supreme Committee forDelivery & Legacy, discussed worker welfare, the challenges ofhosting a World Cup, and the stadium that will have a second life as awedding hall, among other issues, in an interview with The News YorkTimes (NYT). Following are the highlights:NYT: You are the secretary-general of the Supreme Committee for Delivery& Legacy. That’s quite a name. Did you come up with that?Al-Thawadi: Yes. I’ve always been accused of not being too creative.Q: What’s the biggest obstacle you face? What’s going to be the hardest part of putting on a World Cup?A: I think it’s difficult to distinguish one particular element. Simplyput, when you’re organising major tournaments, as you get closer,pressure keeps on piling up, scrutiny keeps on piling up. So it’s justthe idea of continue of keeping focus on delivering on the projects, notfeeling the pressure because the timelines come in, not starting to getinto panic mode. We’ve been planning this for quite some time, andwe’re delivering on the ground according to our schedule.Q: There is something, though, that you have to contend with that otherevents you’ve studied did not, and that is this is a very differentsporting event because of the cultural component.A: Absolutely. If you look for parallels, look at South Africa during2010 – you experienced that first African World Cup, you feel that buzz.You land in Joburg or Cape Town and walk the streets and you feel thatelectricity. It’s the same thing over here: it’s the first World Cup inthe Middle East. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and we’ve alwaysfocused on it being a regional World Cup. This is a World Cup beyondQatar. It’s a cultural experience.Q: Does the current situation in the region, the blockade of Qatar bysome of its neighbours, complicate that idea of making it a regionalevent?A: No. We’ve always taken the simple position that sports is elevatedfrom conflict. This is always a platform to bring people together, andto separate it from any political ideology.Q: Do you think your neighbours will play along with that?A: I can’t speak on their behalf. From our side, we’ve always taken thatposition. Even today, from our side, everybody’s welcome. I hope thatthey see reason, and recognise this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity forthe people of our region. We’re football crazy. I mean, the Middle East,the Arab world, is football crazy, plain and simple. You go to anycorner, whether it’s in Qatar, whether it’s in Saudi, whether it’s inMorocco, and start speaking football, and you will find a very, verydeep cauldron of passion and knowledge.Q: The compact nature of Qatar’s World Cup means the stadiums will beonly an hour or two apart at most, and sometimes much less. Are thereplans to take advantage of that, and does that raise security issues?A: The compact World Cup has a lot of advantages, first and foremost forthe fans. Whoever has experienced previous World Cups, you always hadto figure out ways of travelling, and accommodation, trying to followyour team, and it puts stress on fans. Here, the fans have theopportunity to attend more than one match a day.Q: There is talk about taking advantage of that, right? Of selling multiday or multigame passes?A: That’s what I’m saying. You can watch a match in the afternoon andthen go for the evening match as well. So it adds that element for fanswho want to do that. And more importantly, for players. Because theplayers don’t have to worry about travelling from one place to another.They don’t have to worry about playing a match in a certain city,getting up early, getting on a flight, moving on, getting used to a newaccommodation, resting, and then going out and playing. Everybody isfocused on what matters: delivering to the best of their ability on thepitch. And that can only be good for the fans.Q: And security concerns from having all those different fans so close to one another?A: You look at the Olympics, it has that Olympic Village feel, thatglobal, international, we-are-a-global-community feel to it. And that’swhat this World Cup offers as well. In terms of managing that, andsecurity, we are in constant co-ordination and co-operation with majorsecurity operations throughout the world, learning from them, whetherit’s in terms of Champions League matches or league matches. We’represent at every single major tournament.Q: But mixing rival fans can lead to trouble, like the day when Englishand Russian fans fought in Marseille at the European Championships lastyear.A: I think it’d be very cynical and very pessimistic to look at certainexamples and say, “This is the norm,” when sometimes they’re theoutlier.Q: Have you had feedback from FIFA, or from individual associations,about the idea that a team might be able to spend the whole tournamentin one place?A: That was the essence of our bid, and for a lot of people it wasappealing. What matters for us is to create an environment for the teamsand the coaches. But I think it’s important to note that majorinternational teams have come to Qatar to use it as the base for theirwinter camps – Barcelona, Real Madrid, Milan, Bayern Munich. And peoplecome because we have got some of the best facilities in the world. Stateof the art. And that’s the reason they continue to come back.Q: Qatar has taken tough criticism from human rights and labour groupsover the treatment of workers, some of it quite severe. We’re interestedin your thoughts on that. A: No country is perfect. We have issues, and we have challenges when itcomes to being the fastest growing nation at a point in time in termsof both population and economic activity. Unfortunately, while the lawswere in place, the ability and the resources to implement and enforcethese laws were challenging. With the World Cup coming on board, ofcourse the spotlight came in, but this is something we recognised. So,when we said legacy, we mean the World Cup is an opportunity to be acatalyst for positive change, and to increase the momentum forinitiatives that the government was already committed to. And of courseworker welfare is one of them.There’s obviously what the government has done, which I can’t speak towith authority. What I can tell you is what we’ve done as the SupremeCommittee. When we won the World Cup, we developed a charter, weassessed the market conditions, we looked at the gaps and the issues, weconsulted with NGOs and the construction sector, to understand thechallenges from their side, and we developed a set of standards.We are now in our second edition, and these standards are a livedocument, and they are constantly being reviewed. To ensure they’rebeing enforced, we’ve developed a four-tier auditing system: aself-audit by the contractors themselves; our own audits that we do;we’ve got a third-party auditor that conducts its own and issues its ownannual report; and we’ve of course got the government auditing ourprojects as well.These issues that you’re referring to in the news media weren’treflected on us, weren’t the World Cup project. There is only one reportthat came out, from Amnesty International, where they had performed aninvestigation, and then a year later they came to us and said: “Theseare our findings. What do you have to say about this?” During that year –we didn’t realise Amnesty International had performed thatinvestigation – we identified these issues and were fixing them. So,actually our system worked. Because as the projects started ramping up,we started identifying the areas and the gaps and so on, and we hadaddressed a lot of these issues.Q: So, if we called Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, they would say everything’s been fixed?A: They wouldn’t say everything’s been fixed because I’m not sayingeverything’s been fixed. What I’m saying is this is a work in progress.This is not something that can be fixed overnight. But you candefinitely talk to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and talkabout our commitment, talk about our transparency with them, about theprogress that we’ve made. And I would urge you to call them and ask themthat question. On the other hand, when you call them, ask them if allthe conditions in the United States were fixed. Then I’d be interestedin you making a comparison on the answer.Because for me it’s very simple: the issue that we’re talking about, ofworker welfare, is an issue that the global community faces. Everycountry in the world faces it.Q: Should Israel qualify, would the team and its fans be welcome?A: Everyone is welcome. It’s a simple answer: everybody is welcome.Q: How many visitors do you expect in 2022?A: Cumulatively, we’re talking about 1.2mn.Q: Can Qatar handle that yet? How much of the infrastructure for that is in place already?A: It’s being developed. But this is the vision of the World Cup for us.When we first bid, the idea was simple: utilising this World Cup as anopportunity as a catalyst for the country’s growth, for its originalurban development plans. So, as the country was expanding, theinfrastructure of the World Cup fit in with the country’s plans. Were-prioritised certain projects, obviously, to fulfil the World Cuprequirements, but that’s just a milestone in the country’s overalldevelopment. So, the hotels required for the country’s tourismrequirements are being developed. The Metro system is going to befunctioning by 2020. The road networks are being developed as well. Soby 2020, 2021, everything is going to be in place.Q: How do you avoid the kind of waste that Brazil and South Africaexperienced, these massive stadiums they don’t need after the tournamentleaves?A: When we submitted the bid, that was the first thing in our mind: wewanted to avoid white elephants, a reminder of money that was spent andthen not utilised.So, take the stadiums: each stadium we’ve designed, we assured that itwas on the transit network that was being developed for the country, andthat each one had to be a centre for the community, that each one had alegacy story already developed.We realised the FIFA requirements in terms of capacity didn’t fulfil ourneeds beyond 2022, so we developed the modular seating concept. Wedecided on the stadiums we would need, and these would have a mixture offixed and modular seats. So, the fixed seats would be the capacity weneed – about 15,000 to 20,000 – and the rest would be taken out. Otherstadiums, the entire concept is modular, so we’ll be taking the entireseating capacity out.How did we decide which would be temporary? We engaged the community.For every design, we went to them and asked, “What do you need? What areyou missing? How can this facility assist you?” So, for example, downsouth is a small little city called Al Wakrah. We went to the communityand asked them, “What do you need?” They turned around and said one ofthe things we need is wedding halls. “There’s a lot of these weddings,and we always go up to Doha –  we need a wedding hall.” So, within theproject we developed an area for the wedding hall. There was a need forschool facilities, so within the master plan we also have developedspace for school facilities. Every single stadium has that kind ofstory, to be used as a centre for its community.But that’s stadiums. In terms of infrastructure, the Metro system, theroad network, it’s part of the urban development of the country.