Status: 11/01/2022 10:52 a.m
Interior Minister Faeser and DFB boss Neuendorf are visiting Qatar shortly before the World Cup. There had been diplomatic upsets beforehand. That no longer matters, says Faeser. Does Qatar see it too?
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is meeting with the head of government in Qatar today to talk about human rights shortly before the World Cup. Before that, Faeser and DFB President Bernd Neuendorf found out about the final preparations for the World Cup. The SPD Minister responsible for top-class sport spoke to the Secretary General of the World Cup Organizing Committee, Hassan al-Thawadi, in the Qatari capital of Doha.
Faeser’s two-day trip will focus on human rights issues that will be discussed around the tournament, such as the protection of queer people from discrimination and the responsibility for migrant workers who built the World Cup stadiums.
Before the start of Faeser’s visit, the Qatari government had complained because the German sports minister had decided not to award the World Cup to Qatar ARD magazine monitor publicly criticized. According to the Foreign Ministry in Doha, Qatar summoned the German ambassador on Friday. In a joint statement on Saturday, the Gulf monarchies dismissed Faeser’s comments as “interference in Qatar’s internal affairs”.
Meeting scheduled with Prime Minister
Ahead of her meeting with Qatari Prime Minister and Interior Minister Khalid bin Chalifa Al-Thani, Faeser said she did not believe this would overshadow her stay in the Arab country. You have always shown a “clear attitude”. And “in my view, that doesn’t matter here,” said Faeser. How these talks go will probably also depend on whether and who will travel to the World Cup for the federal government. A meeting between Faeser and FIFA President Gianni Infantino is also planned.
According to information from delegation circles, Al-Thawadi said he regretted that the Federal Government’s Human Rights Commissioner, Luise Amtsberg, had canceled her trip to Qatar at short notice. Participants reported that the meeting with the head of the organizing committee took place in a friendly atmosphere.
Amtsberg had canceled her trip, which should have started at the weekend, because the extent of the upset in Qatar was still unclear at the time, according to Faeser’s statements.
CDU foreign politician for restraint
The foreign policy spokesman for the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Jürgen Hardt, on the other hand, advised that controversial human rights issues should be clarified with Qatar after the World Cup. “I think we would do well to respect the weeks before the games that the Qataris are very proud of these games,” said the CDU politician joint morning magazine from ARD and ZDF. Honor and pride played a major role in this region. “And that if we want to make a difference for the people in the region, if we want to change the human rights situation, we should count on the fact that more is possible after these games than if there is a major confrontation now.” Hardt urged restraint, but thought Faeser’s trip to the country was the right thing to do.
DFB President: Sport “much more political”
From the point of view of DFB President Bernd Neuendorf, the controversial awarding of the World Cup to Qatar and the discussions surrounding it have already changed the sport. “He has become much more political,” Neuendorf said in the evening on ZDF’s “heute-journal”. “And we will – I believe – no longer experience an award without taking into account such issues as sustainability and human rights. You have to discuss these things in advance,” added the head of the German Football Association.
Neuendorf emphasized that the world football association FIFA had already included the issue of human rights in its list of criteria for awarding future tournaments. It must be in the interests of FIFA and football organizations to gain social acceptance for the awarding of such tournaments.
The World Cup finals in Qatar begin on November 20th and end with the final on December 18th.