Beumer was in Zeist for the screening of the short documentary Don’t turn your back. This is a report of meetings with migrants and relatives who worked in the stadiums in Qatar, where the Dutch national team will play during the World Cup in November. Amnesty International has been campaigning for migrant workers in Qatar for a long time and has itself called on FIFA to set up a fund.
The situation in Qatar has been discussed for years. As more and more information comes out, several organizations have launched actions for the workers. For example, after the screening of the documentary and the subsequent discussion panel, the clothing brand Cruyff announced that it would donate 50,000 euros for the migrants and relatives in Nepal.
According to Beumer, FIFA has so far not cooperated in the process of arranging compensation: “We have been asking FIFA for a while to come up with a concrete proposal for a compensation fund. A fund that should make it easy for people from Nepal to come up with a claim. But FIFA has been training and has been saying for a while: we’re coming up with something. Undoubtedly there will be a lot of discussion within the World Football Association. We have now heard that they will come up with something at the end of September or the beginning of October.”
Amnesty and the KNVB are on the same page when it comes to the compensation fund. We also believe that the victims or surviving relatives should be compensated, with a role for employers/construction companies, the government in Qatar, the organizing committee and FIFA,” the KNVB reported earlier this week.
Amnesty International is certainly not alone in speaking out about the conditions of workers in Qatar. At the start of the World Cup qualifiers, the Orange players made a statement on the field by wearing T-shirts with the text ‘Football Supports Change’.