Once again, FIFA has sold its own rules and values for money – POLITICO

Miguel Poiares Maduro is dean of Católica Global School of Law. He is also an adjunct professor and the former director of the EUI School of Transnational Governance. Alberto Alemanno is the Jean Monnet Professor in European Union Law at HEC Paris and founder of the Good Lobby. Viola von Cramon-Taubadel is a member of the European Parliament and recently proposed a World Anti-Corruption Agency for Sports. Joseph Weiler is the Jean Monnet Chair at NYU. Jamil Chade is an investigative journalist and author from Brasil.

Everybody knows why this World Cup is taking place in Qatar — money.

It was the only reason the tournament was awarded to a tiny city-state that not only lacks a footballing tradition but also has the worst possible natural conditions to host it. And throughout the many scandals that have plagued this event — from corruption to human rights violations — the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) has staunchly stood by its 2010 decision to organize the World Cup in Qatar.

Its argument? The tournament has made — and will continue to make — things better for the country and its people. But is that truly the case?

For autocratic regimes, hosting big sports events like this has one primary aim: gaining political capital at home and abroad. While autocrats hope they’ll gain popularity at home as they continue to stifle dissent, they also hope to project their country on the international stage, drawing world leaders, celebrities and business figures. And though it’s true that the occasion may have also publicized Qatar’s human right violations, only a minority of the world’s population — albeit a growing one — will really pay attention to that.

It is for all these reasons that autocratic regimes are so eager to host big sports events and are prepared to pay fortunes to do so — in other words, it’s “sportswashing.” And ultimately, such events only further entrench the regime.

FIFA correctly argues that as a global organization, it needs to be able to deal with very different regimes, and stakeholders coming from many different cultures. Yet, at the same time, it claims to be free from any political interference, and to be democratically and consistently organized along a set of values and principles that protect human rights and prohibit any form of discrimination

One may, therefore, reasonably expect both the attribution of its events and their operation to be carried out in a way that’s consistent with those values. So, while it’s conceivable that, given football’s global nature, even nondemocratic regimes may gain the right to host football events, no state should gain the right to organize a World Cup in violation of these principles that FIFA proclaims to defend

FIFA now has a human rights policy that any host country must commit to uphold — but that simply becomes another example of window dressing when the organization shows no real commitment to implement that policy.

Once it was clear that Qatar being awarded the World Cup might have been the product of corruption, FIFA should have followed through on the…