“Boycotting the World Cup would not be an act of courage”

The national coach of Belgium, Roberto Martinez, assured this Thursday that a boycott by one of the participating teams to the Qatar World Cup “it would not be an act of courage” and he compared it to “looking the other way”, while, he considered, going to the country “will help bring middle East ideas on human and labor rights”.

In an interview with the Belgian newspaper Evening, Martinez assured that the Belgian Football Federation “respects all points of view” and urged “talk to the experts” to “form an opinion” about holding the competition in Qatar, where international organizations have denounced human rights violations and abuses jobs to thousands of migrant workers in organizing the event.

In any case, he rejected the boycott by the teams and, although he acknowledged that some of his sponsors have decided to take that path, he pointed out that others have decided to “act to improve the situation in Qatar relying on the trade unions and on Amnesty International”.

“Looking the other way when there is a problem is not an act of courage. Courage is being convinced that you can bring change to this society. If we can bring ideas about human and labor rights to Middle East, then it will be worth it. With this World Cup, Qatar will be the center of the world for more than a month,” said the Belgian coach.

Martínez He explained that he himself has asked the experts “if a boycott would be the solution” and assured that they answered that it is “the worst thing that could be done.”

Furthermore, he said, “according to Amnesty International and the unions, the situation in Qatar He has improved the last two years just because the World Cup is approaching.

Amnesty International has reported that Qatar approved in 2018 a series of important labor reforms that seek to improve the rights of workers, but warns that “the lack of application of the law makes the abuses persist” and that in the last decade hundreds of thousands of migrants “have faced human rights abuses during the construction of the necessary infrastructure to host the 2022 World Cup”.

“The vast majority of migrant workers in Qatar, for example, they have paid illegal recruitment fees of more than $1,300 on average per worker to secure a job, whereas before 2020, all were restricted in their ability to change jobs or leave the country,” Amnesty International explains.

At the interview, Martínez In any case, he asked to ensure that “things continue to progress” in terms of human rights after the World Cup.

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