Rare missteps from the people’s champion, Gary Neville. Accepting the beIN dollar, even if it is not life-changing as he insists, seeking an off ramp via the double standard defence, and perhaps the biggest folly of all, arguing that by working closely with a country steeped in human rights violations he is somehow helping them towards enlightenment. Wrong, wrong and wrong again.
Let’s start with the deal to work for the Qatari broadcaster during the World Cup. Neville argues that the terms of his engagement are no different from the British state actors, investment fund managers, arms traders that do business in the region.
“We have sold about 40 billion quid’s worth of arms to Middle Eastern countries over the last 10 years as a UK Government. They own half of London and are probably donating to the Conservative party,” he said. He is absolutely right. There is no difference. They are all on the wrong side of the argument and he is just as tainted as they are.
Furthermore, there is a significant difference between accepting personal terms to work with a Qatari company and living in a country whose institutions do business with Qatar. About the latter citizens can do little, about the former they can.
Neville is not responsible for the actions of the British state, its pension companies or its bankers by owning a British passport. But he is for dealing directly with a Qatari institution. That is entirely on him and it confers upon Qatar tacit tolerance and acceptance of the nation’s human rights record no matter his protests to the contrary.
Moving on to double standards. Using the examples of Manchester City and Newcastle, Neville seeks to expose our bad faith. “They’re owned by Abu Dhabi, who have massive issues with women’s rights, worker’s rights, LGBTQ rights, exactly the same, in fact worse, than Qatar,” he said of City.
“Qatar have had Amnesty International and the International Labour Organisation all over them for the last 10 years because of the World Cup. Saudi Arabia have come into our country to own Newcastle and they’ve got terrible human rights issues over there. The journalist [Jamal Khashoggi] killed there a few years ago, for example.”
Neville is offended by the lack of balance in the treatment of Qatar in the national discourse, put out by the pounding Qatar has taken in relation to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Given the torrid treatment the Saudi-backed LIV Golf rebels received, the rough ride Newcastle were given following the PIF buy-out, how Manchester City continue to be stained by the Abu Dhabi association, it is a stretch to argue any escaped lightly.
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Moreover it is preposterous to argue that others are “exactly the same or in fact worse than Qatar”. You are either a human rights offender or you are not. Even if degrees of offence were allowed, the defence would not apply to a nation as steeped in abuses as Qatar.
And finally; agreeing to work for beIN Sports as a reforming act. Ye Gods. This might be called the Graeme McDowell defence. “If Saudi Arabia want to use the game of golf as a way for them to get to where they want to be, I think we’re proud to help them on that journey,” McDowell said in justification of his deal to play on the LIV Golf tour.
Using the same rationale Neville argues that by engaging with beIN Sport he is somehow shining a light on the cultural, social and political mores of a country that makes criminals of the LBGTQ community and mercilessly exploits and mistreats its majority foreign workforce.
Except this is not the same as holding Qatar to account is it? For that Neville would have to use his platform to call out live on air during the half-time interlude Qatar’s discriminatory medieval laws and voice his opposition to the equally antediluvian conditions of the migrant labourers from South East Asia on whose backs the World Cup infrastructure was built.
Of course that won’t happen because what Neville is doing has nothing to do with protest or reform. It is a straightforward commercial transaction in which Neville is paid by Qatari state TV in return for services rendered.
And that’s fine. We get it. The world is a complex place. By all means take the Qatari dollar, Gary, but please, own your choices.
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