Boycott threats are looming over both the 2022 World Cup and the 2022 Winter Olympics. Athletes, organizations, and politicians are pressuring the major sporting events amid concerns over human rights violations, but it remains to be seen how much of an impact the threats will have.
Last week, when the European qualifiers for the World Cup kicked off, players from Norway, The Netherlands, and Germany protested the working conditions that migrant workers were facing in host nation Qatar by wearing shirts calling for action.
"We have the World Cup coming up and there will be discussions about it ... we wanted to show we are not ignoring that," said Bayern Munich midfielder Leon Goretzka, according to Firstpost. "We have a large reach — and we can use it to set an example for the values we want to stand for."
In February, The Guardian revealed that more than 6,500 migrant workers have died since 2010, when Qatar won the bid to host the tournament. It was suggested that many of those migrants who had died were working on World Cup infrastructure projects.
"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," said Nick McGeehan, a director at FairSquare Projects, an advocacy group specializing in labor rights in the Gulf.
The boycott came in response to these figures.
Meanwhile, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics is also facing threats of a boycott over China's treatment of the Uyghur minority in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. Campaigners are urging countries to skip the event and, on Thursday, 200 rights organizations put forth a call for Mars Wrigley to pull Snickers, which is the official Olympic chocolate, CTV News reported.
The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), however, has said it would not boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics. Speaking during a press conference, USOPC Board President Susanne Lyons said that a boycott would ultimately hurt the athletes who had been training for years to compete in the event.
"While we would never want to minimize what is happening from a human rights perspective in China, we do not support an athlete boycott," said Lyons, according to DW News. "We believe such boycotts have not been effective in the past, particularly in 1980," Lyons continued. "Those boycotts only hurt athletes who have trained their entire lives for this opportunity to represent their country."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.