Controversial Games: Qatar’s World Cup, China’s Olympics, and the Controversies around the World’s Biggest Sports Platforms

Hosting the World Cup isn’t cheap. Neither is hosting the Olympics. Nations who host the World Cup and the Olympic Games often lose money. Despite revenue from tourism, the planning, stadium construction, logistics, and disruptions end up leaving the host nation not only without profit, but with new debt.

So, why do countries volunteer to host these high profile sports events? It’s because the high profile of the event confers that high profile status to the host nation.

There is prestige in being selected out of the many nations that apply to host the World Cup and the Olympics. And there is attention that comes with the selection once the games begin to be played.

That is why China wanted to host the Olympics in 2022. And that is why Qatar wanted to host the World Cup in 2022. Both are nations with something to prove to the world, nations with a stated interest in gaining prominence on the global scene.

The World Cup in Qatar

The World Cup in Qatar has been dogged by controversy since the country was awarded the chance to host the 2022 event twelve years ago. Writing for the BBC, Dan Roan outlines a litany of questions and concerns that have made this “the most controversial sports mega-event in a very long time.”

Roan’s list includes claims that the FIFA council was corrupt, potentially opting to grant Qatar the World Cup hosting rights in exchange for bribes. The event will also create more greenhouse gas emissions than any previous World Cup, according to Roan’s reporting.

Perhaps people would look past these issues if there weren’t other, deeper concerns about a repressive political culture in Qatar. Roan writes, “Most damaging to the reputation of the event have been persistent fears over the human toll of building the infrastructure required in such a short period of time and in such a climate, along with discriminatory laws which prohibit homosexuality, and curtail women’s freedoms through male guardianship rules.”

Stories have circulated about deaths within the labor force brought in to build the infrastructure for the event. In 2021, The Guardian reported that as many as 6,500 immigrant laborers had died in the last decade and a “very significant proportion of the migrant workers who have died since 2011 were only in the country because Qatar won the right to host the World Cup.” In response to criticism about unsafe working conditions and this alarming number of deaths, the government has refused to acknowledge that these reports suggest any problems that need to be solved. The implications of these reports amount a scenario where the World Cup in Qatar was built on the backs of dead men.

These individual issues lead to a more broadly held concern that granting the World Cup to the Qatar is equivalent to approving of the nation’s political regime. Critics worry that the event becomes a form of de facto support for the values and policies currently associated with the nation’s leadership.

The Olympics in China

When China hosted the Olympics, the United States and several other countries declined to send an official state ambassador along with the athletes. Usually, an ambassador would go along as a way to recognize the host nation, a bit like bringing a bottle of wine when you are invited to a dinner party. It’s a sign of appreciation and respect.

However, the United States did not want to send that message to China. As The Washington Post made clear, “concerns about China’s human rights abuses in Tibet and against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang were so strong that the United States, Australia, Canada and Britain adopted a diplomatic boycott of the Games” (“Beijing 2022 will be remembered as the ‘scandal Olympics”).

Additional stories of government censorship and suppression of the press also clouded the event. (This is all in addition to existing tensions arising from American economic competition with China and China’s threatening posture regarding both Hong Kong and Taiwan.)

Athletes competing in the Olympics in China were warned that “any protesters that violate ‘the Olympic spirit’ or Chinese law could be subject to unspecified punishment by the host country” (ESPN). These threats were successful in suppressing political and social protest at the games.

As one American Olympic athlete told Rolling Stone magazine, “We work so hard to get to the Olympics, so the last thing we want to do is get thrown out — or if you do win a medal, get that medal taken away from you.”

The Arguments

Clearly, there are many problems that come with the choice of giving hosting rights for these events to certain countries. What are the arguments in favor of doing it anyway?

The first argument is that no country has a perfect track record. The second would be that using sporting events to incentivize responsible and humane governance is a distortion of the actual purpose and nature of sports.

Additionally, some will claim that nations seen as abusive or politically oppressive might be changed for the better by all the scrutiny that comes with the spotlight. The population of the host nation might benefit from such changes.

When athletes are silenced, however, the avenues for giving voice to protest are limited. The tools for change may not be built into the platform of the sporting event itself and may have to come from more indirect sources like the diplomatic boycott of China mentioned above or from media coverage surrounding the event.

This raises a few questions.

If the athletes at the center of the event cannot use that platform to speak, can those other methods of pressure actually work? What would have to happen for these events to truly be transformative in a positive way? If the potential for change is the reason for granting hosting rights to nations seen as bad actors, is there enough potential for actual success to justify that reasoning?

A Bag of Ethical Questions

The circumstances surrounding these sporting events create some complex questions.

• Is it right for the international governing bodies of the Olympics and the World Cup to continue to confer hosting duties to nations with dubious reputations regarding human rights, freedom of the press, and political oppression?
• Does it become part of FIFA’s job to investigate the truth behind claims of abuses of power or corruption within a potential host nation? If it isn’t up to them to investigate, whose job is it? And who gets to decide what constitutes an abuse of power? Who gets to decide what kind of political culture is the “right” political culture to reward with hosting duties?
• If a country like the United States believes that a host nation has committed human rights abuses, should the leaders in government keep athletes from participating in the Olympics or the World Cup?
• If the host country wants the international approval that is implied with hosting duties yet other nations do not feel that approval is appropriate (because it tacitly approves of the values and actions of the host nation’s government), should those other nations keep their athletes from competing in the event?
• If, for instance, an individual athlete disagrees with Qatar’s laws limiting the rights of women and gay people, is that athlete ethically obligated to boycott the event?

These questions are all complicated. And this isn’t an exhaustive list. There are more ethical quandaries involved here.

When we put ourselves in the position of the individual athlete, we can see that there are competing realities at work.

On the one hand, the individual athlete did not choose China or Qatar as the host nation. That was up to an international governing board. The board made the decision. The athlete didn’t. That’s one reality.

Also, the sports teams are institutions. The United States funds and facilitates the Olympic team and the World Cup team. They have chosen to participate in the event. The athlete doesn’t make that choice. The people running the sports programs do. That’s another reality.

Yet, there is a sticky reality for the final “chooser” in this scenario. In the end, each athlete makes a choice to participate or not participate, which is a third reality to consider.

These big sports events take place every four years. Athletic careers are very brief. Qualifying for the Olympics or the World Cup could very well be a one-time thing in the life of any athlete. After a lifetime spent preparing for this moment, can the athlete be expected to put their political conscience above their own self-interest?

Should they even be asked to do that?

The other side of the coin is the ethical “bottom line.” The choices we make as individuals define who we are. Our choices reflect our values. Our actions are our identities.

If you were an athlete preparing to play in the World Cup in Qatar, what would you do?