Paris joins big screen boycott of World Cup games from Qatar
In the latest controversy to rock Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid, the government has banned football matches to be played there. This follows the announcement that four of the stadiums in the country are now out of bounds for the 2022 competition.
Meanwhile, Saudi and Emirati authorities have already been accused of withholding funds to finance the tournament, and several players including the France midfielder Paul Pogba and the Manchester United man Robin Van Persie have publicly joined the football boycott.
The news of Sunday night’s World Cup boycott is significant in part because of the fact that it comes on the same day as the United States’ general election, which could also result in changes to US policies regarding women’s rights, LGBTQ rights and labor.
On Wednesday, the Guardian, in partnership with the media research department at the University of Oxford, will launch a new global poll which will see 1,000 US adults answer a series of questions designed to better understand how the country has voted on women’s rights over the last few decades, how LGBTQ Americans identify, and how Americans perceive the labor landscape.
The poll, which will last until December 13, will be carried out by the UK-based market research and analytics company YouGov’s Populus Unit and it will be delivered in collaboration with the Washington Post, which is one of the four US media outlets that have joined the boycott against Qatar.
In a video message published on Facebook on Thursday evening, the Saudi crown prince said of the US government that he was “shocked” and said it was “unbelievable” that an election “that has caused a lot of trouble and unrest” took place.
While there is no indication that support for the US presidential election will have any impact on the decision to boycott the 2022 World Cup, there have been calls for other countries to follow suit.
On Friday, the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, called on his fellow MEPs to join the boycott against Qatar.
“The World Cup bids are supposed to be free and fair. This new ban is a clear breach of international law as it affects all the bids and makes them, in effect, an international sporting event,” Schulz said in a statement on Friday.
The Qatar 2022 bid has been dogged
