Amnesty International has called on the Football Association and England manager Gareth Southgate to support the creation of a compensation fund for the “hundreds of thousands” of migrant workers who have suffered human rights abuses while working on preparations for the Qatar World Cup.
A coalition of human rights and fan groups has written to Fifa president Gianni Infantino demanding $440m (£356m) of the estimated $6bn revenue the governing body is due to generate when the tournament is played later this year is set aside for abused workers and their families. The figure matches the tournament’s prize money.
Amnesty predicts it is the minimum required to provide compensation and to fund initiatives to protect human rights at future tournaments.
But the campaign group believes the total sum to reimburse unpaid wages, recruitment fees paid by workers and compensate for injuries and deaths could be higher. It says compensation should be determined by a joint process including unions, the International Labour Organisation and other groups.
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Amnesty’s chief executive has increased pressure on the FA by urging the governing body to support the idea.
“Thousands of migrant workers have been exploited and many have tragically died to make this World Cup possible, so we hope the FA and Gareth Southgate and the players will back this innovative scheme to secure much-needed compensation for long-suffering workers’ families,” Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, Sacha Deshmukh, said.
“Nothing can bring dead workers back to life or restore the dignity of those who were trapped in conditions amounting to modern-day slavery during Qatar’s World Cup building boom, but a Fifa workers’ fund would still be an important move.
“International football can easily afford to do the right thing here. This is a comparatively small share of Fifa’s enormous prize-money pot – and it would provide some real redress for the serious human rights violations that underpin this tournament.”
When asked for a response, the FA directed i to a statement on its website that reflects its current position on Qatar.
Part of the statement reads: “We are in dialogue with human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and also with Fifa, Uefa, other Member Associations and the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and we are working closely with all to ensure that we approach our participation in the upcoming Fifa World Cup in a socially responsible manner.
“From those discussions to date, we believe that there is evidence of substantial progress being made by Qatar in relation to workers’ rights. However, we recognise there is still more to be done and that the positive steps made in legislation aren’t yet being implemented universally.
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“Our view remains that change is best achieved by working collaboratively with others so that we can continue to ask the right questions, while always being mindful that we also have our own human rights challenges in this country.”
Following a letter from Amnesty’s deputy director Stephen Cockburn outlining the proposal, Fifa’s head of human rights and anti-discrimination, Andreas Graf, insisted “Fifa is currently in the process of discussing ways to ensure that labour rights-related grievances during the competition period will be handled efficiently”.
Graf added: “We have also taken note of and are assessing the propositions set out in your letter.”
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