REGARDING Qatar, why is it that people are unwilling to look beyond the World Cup?
 
Organisers Fifa are only concerned with the welfare of overseas labourers involved in building the World Cup infrastructure and LGBT visitors during the tournament itself — they offer only lip service for what goes on in Qatar the rest of the time. 

The threat of sanctions dependent on improvements has always been a no-no — there never was a chance of Fifa withdrawing the tournament from Qatar once the time-honoured brown envelopes had been dished out to football’s pampered bigwigs during the bidding process.

Fifa and governments have expressed some concerns about fans visiting the Gulf state, but have never taken a stand on the regime’s treatment of its own people or migrant workers, instead pointing to tiny incremental improvements made by the Qatari government headed by the emir, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani,  as if they were triumphs in a  battle with some mighty unseen stumbling block. 

Well, perhaps Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has touched on this with his reference to a country “with a very different set of cultural norms to our own.” But the point is, the Qatari regime is unopposed: it could make sweeping reforms at a stroke —  but chooses not to.

Even Keir Starmer seems to have grown a spine on this one: he’s said he won’t be going. But Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has made it clear he won’t be boycotting the World Cup: there are far too many arms and oil deals to tie up with his “international interlocutors” to miss out on this little bean feast.

The World Cup in Qatar will come and go, football’s jamboree will move on to other rich pastures — and nothing will have changed for the LGBT community there, and precious little for foreign labourers, unless there is concerted pressure from abroad.