Latest news with #FairSquare
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
He spent three horrific years in a Doha jail, now Abdullah Ibhais wants justice from Qatar and Fifa
Now that Abdullah Ibhais sits happily in Oslo, enjoying the cool air, he can calmly reflect on the moment he realised his life was changing. The former 2022 World Cup worker – described by Amnesty as a Qatar whistleblower – had been going through the state's legal process following his November 2021 arrest, and was at that point optimistic there had just been some misunderstanding. Ibhais describes how, in the middle of the process, one Qatari official came out with the following. Advertisement 'You think you can fight the state?' Ibhais couldn't do anything but laugh in shock. 'At that moment, I realised how deep the issue was.' The Jordanian national was finally released on 11 March 2025, having served his full sentence. In July 2024, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions declared he had been a victim of arbitrary detention and urged Qatari authorities to release him immediately. Human rights groups, such as FairSquare, believe his case serves as a prism for the story of that entire World Cup. Ibhais wasn't just a worker in the preparations for the most-watched sporting event in the world, he was a media manager. Consequently, his case involves the long and controversial build-up, the migrant workers, the media coverage, how Qatar spins, and how Qatar works. Ibhais's version is that he went to investigate complaints over workers' rights, stood up for them by advising the Supreme Committee to acknowledge its role, and found himself the subject of a malicious prosecution. FairSquare say Ibhais provided plenty of evidence for his case. Advertisement The version from within Qatar points to Ibhais's April 2021 conviction for 'bribery', 'violation of the integrity of tenders and profits' and 'intentional damage to public funds'. Ibhais's conviction was upheld on appeal, although his sentence was reduced from five years to three years. FairSquare says there was almost no evidence for this, other than Ibhais's confession, which he later retracted and said was coerced. The human rights body says his allegation of coercion is highly credible. The UN working group's finding that he was a victim of arbitrary detention is also highly significant, especially in light of Fifa's refusal to comment when contacted by The Independent. He now wants to go further than just fighting the state. He wants to try to sue both Qatar's Supreme Committee and Fifa, for negligence. 'They couldn't even follow their own guidelines,' Ibhais says of Fifa. 'I'll try every possible avenue, either in Switzerland, the US or any country where they have jurisdiction or bilateral agreements with Fifa.' Abdullah Ibhais wants to try and sue both Qatar's Supreme Committee and Fifa, for negligence (Abdullah Ibhais/Human Rights Watch) Fifa did previously repeat the line 'any person deserves a trial that is fair and where due process is observed and respected', but FairSquare describes this as meaningless. The Independent covered Ibhais's case during the 2022 World Cup, and speaks to him now in the Norwegian capital, the night before he takes part in a series of events at the Oslo Freedom Forum. It is the first time Ibhais has left Jordan, as well as his wife and two young children, since he was deported from Doha after his release. The timing is apt, given this is five days before Saturday's Champions League final in Munich, where Qatar could enjoy their next great sporting moment. The state-owned Paris Saint-Germain could finally win the competition they are desperate for. Advertisement The discussion turns to Qatar's previous great sporting moment: the hosting of that World Cup. Ibhais says he couldn't even watch it. Such obstinacy took concerted effort, given that the prison guards apparently rolled huge TVs into the mess hall for all 29 days, with prisoners not allowed to change the channel from BeIN Sport. 'During the World Cup was the worst,' Ibhais says. 'It felt like total defeat. 'OK, it's hard to be cut away from your family, but the feeling of injustice was the hardest thing to cope with. They got what they wanted, here it was, you're there, no one cares, and there's nothing you can do. Life goes on, yours doesn't.' The Qatar World Cup was controversial from the outset (Getty) It is shortly into telling this story that Ibhais offers what he feels is a crucial caveat. Advertisement 'I accept I am biased.' How could he not be, given his experience? Ibhais was eventually detained at a prison that was closest to the Khalifa International Stadium, which hosted England's opening 6-2 win over Iran. He later alleged he was 'physically assaulted by the prison guards', before being subjected to 'complete darkness in solitary confinement … with temperatures near freezing as the prison's central air-conditioning was used as a torture device' so that he couldn't sleep for 96 hours. 'That was all true,' Ibhais says, 'because they were so worried I was going to do something before the World Cup. They felt like teaching me a lesson.' Advertisement Ibhais adds that the conditions in the prison were completely unhygienic. He hasn't gone to a doctor since his release, something a little surprising given that he chose to see a therapist before he was even arrested. 'I was having panic attacks because I realised what I was part of, and I couldn't live with it,' Ibhais says. 'That realisation was worse than prison. It is shocking. Prison, I expected. This, I didn't.' Ibhais has now been released from jail (Abdullah Ibhais/Handout) It's at this moment that Ibhais feels a point needs to be stressed. Throughout the entire 2022 World Cup cycle, Qatar's persistent narrative was that a young state was going through a journey of development, especially as regards the issue of migrant workers. The plea was for understanding, amid reference to necessarily gradual reforms. Advertisement Ibhais knows this well, since his job was to push that narrative. 'They couldn't care less,' he says. 'Forget about how they address the whole issue. Listen to how many Qataris talk to their own workers. It is depressing, the way they yell at them, the way they more or less think of these men and women as slaves. 'Even the most progressive, when they're angry, there's zero respect. Maybe they'll apologise later.' Ibhais says this even extended to prison, where detained Qataris essentially 'hired south Asians to clean for them'. He agrees with the analysis that all reforms were 'superficial'. 'They think they are right and moral, just because they are rich. It took me so long to understand they are bad people. I really believed for so long. Even when they actually detained me, even when they forced me to sign a confession that was already printed – even after all of this – I still believed they can't be so bad. Advertisement 'I was under the impression mid-level officials decided this, and the trial couldn't be swayed.' It's why he says that one sentence from an official – 'You think you can fight the state?' – suddenly made everything so clear. Building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar was a massive undertaking (AP) Against that, there nevertheless remains so much mystery to the case, from the motivations to how high it went. Ibhais believes the reason he was detained cuts to the very nature of the state. 'It was the concept of whistleblowing. It was not what I exactly said,' he explains. 'They didn't like that someone can challenge the way they are doing things. 'They are positioning themselves as leaders of change, and all that trust lies with the Supreme Committee. So if you tolerate such behaviour and the Supreme Committee is discredited, you discredit everything. And if you're paying $250bn for this reputational campaign…' Advertisement Tellingly, Ibhais was mostly housed with 'state security prisoners' and political dissidents. 'They have so many layers of classification, but the most important is 'state security' and people they want to isolate from the world.' One question brings a reference to 'people they're afraid of', to which Ibhais interjects. 'They're not afraid of anyone. It's people they want to silence.' He says those first six months were 'extremely hard'. 'I basically lost my life. Feeling helpless and away from my family was devastating. Then I thought, 'this might take a long time', so I had to find a way to deal with this.' Advertisement Ibhais started writing to anyone he could think of, from Amnesty to the media. That started to bring some peace of mind, aided by the knowledge his wife could still work in Doha, so their two children – now aged six and eight – could be looked after. He says that 'this was part of the deal with the public prosecutor when I signed the confession'. 'Thank God we managed. Of course, all our savings evaporated. I always had hope someone, somewhere, would recognise what was done.' He didn't find that recognition at Fifa, which is one major reason he wants to take action. Despite supplying Fifa with all of his material, Ibhais says he was essentially 'ghosted'. Ibhais says he provided Fifa with all of his material but was essentially 'ghosted' by the organisation (Getty) That was just over a year before the World Cup, and Ibhais believes that Qatar felt he was 'low enough that people would forget'. Advertisement 'There's a hierarchy. There are original Qataris, then from Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, then the Westerners, then other Arabic people, then you have Bangladeshis, Indians… I am in the middle. That's why they thought it would be easy to make an example of me.' Ibhais says his treatment greatly eased once the tournament ended. He was even allowed to speak to his family for 15 minutes every week. When he was eventually free with them in March, it was 'like coming back to life'. 'I still feel I am in that moment. It still feels great.' *** There is another element to Ibhais's story. As a World Cup media manager, he had to deal with journalists like those at The Independent. He outlines how such a state handled such criticism, but also how it influenced him. Advertisement 'I believed you were being racist,' Ibhais reveals. 'I believed that the US, the UK and Australia were just pissed off because they lost to Qatar.' If that sounds familiar to anyone who has followed the public discussions on 2022, what follows will be even more familiar. 'The whole media strategy that unfortunately I was part of is called 'drop by drop' – feeding a countermessage. We start by letting you say whatever you want, then plant the seeds of doubt. 'What if it's this? Or maybe this…?' 'Have you checked yourself?' 'How about you come and see for yourself?' 'So a journalist like you would say whatever he wants, but if you add a quote from us, we are part of the conversation. Advertisement 'If someone critical gets an interview, it's only with top people highly trained with key messaging. 'At the same time, we generate as much positive content as possible. So, your content will appear, but also ours, and then we work on the search engine optimisation to gradually rise step by step. 'We called it 'flip the pyramid'. And because English-speaking media were so critical, we bypassed them for other languages.' Ibhais smiles. 'I put that in place… and then suffered from it for a long time.' Lionel Messi lifted the World Cup in Qatar as Argentina triumphed (PA Archive) So what does Ibhais think about Saturday, and Qatar's PSG potentially becoming European champions? 'At this point, I don't care. Qatar is much more powerful. If I can hold them accountable for what they did to me, it will end there. It's a big fight and there's a lot going on in the world, Ukraine, Gaza… who cares about [Gianni] Infantino?' Advertisement The final mention is instructive, as it indicates where much of his anger lies. 'Fifa should take most of the blame. They knew what they were getting into, but stood by it. Fifa's policies open the door for any future hosts to do the same as Qatar. They got away with it, and saw how all the negative attention in the world will not be able to touch them.' Ibhais hopes that this can change through legal action, but his own story now has a positive note, at least. He can hug his family, just as he dreamed of in that Doha cell. Qatar's Supreme Committee has been contacted for comment
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
He spent three horrific years in a Doha jail, now Abdullah Ibhais wants justice from Qatar and Fifa
Now that Abdullah Ibhais sits happily in Oslo, enjoying the cool air, he can calmly reflect on the moment he realised his life was changing. The former 2022 World Cup worker – described by Amnesty as a Qatar whistleblower – had been going through the state's legal process following his November 2021 arrest, and was at that point optimistic there had just been some misunderstanding. Ibhais describes how, in the middle of the process, one Qatari official came out with the following. 'You think you can fight the state?' Ibhais couldn't do anything but laugh in shock. 'At that moment I realised how deep the issue was.' The Jordanian national was finally released on 11 March 2025, having served his full sentence. In July 2024, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions declared he had been a victim of arbitrary detention and urged Qatari authorities to immediately release him. Human rights groups like FairSquare believe his case serves as a prism for the story of that entire World Cup. Ibhais wasn't just a worker in the preparations for the most watched sporting event in the world, he was a media manager. His case consequently involves the long and controversial build-up, the migrant workers, the media coverage, how Qatar spins and how Qatar works. Ibhais' version is that he went to investigate workers rights' complaints, stood up for them by advising the Supreme Committee to acknowledge their role, before he was the subject of a malicious prosecution. FairSquare say Ibhais provided plenty of evidence for his case. The version from within Qatar points to Ibhais' April 2021 conviction for 'bribery', 'violation of the integrity of tenders and profits' and 'intentional damage to public funds'. Ibhais' conviction was upheld on appeal, although his sentence was reduced from five years to three years. FairSquare say there was almost no evidence for this, other than Ibhais' own confession, which he retracted and said was coerced. The human rights body says his allegation of coercion is highly credible. The UN working group's finding that he was a victim of arbitrary detention is also highly significant, especially in light of Fifa's refusal to comment when contacted by The Independent. He now wants to go further than just fighting the state. He wants to try and sue both Qatar's Supreme Committee and Fifa, for negligence. 'They couldn't even follow their own guidelines,' Ibhais says of Fifa. 'I'll try every possible avenue, either in Switzerland, the US or any country where they have jurisdiction or bilateral agreements with Fifa.' Fifa did previously repeat the line 'any person deserves a trial that is fair and where due process is observed and respected', but FairSquare describe this as meaningless. The Independent covered Ibhais' case during the 2022 World Cup, and speaks to him now in the Norwegian capital, the night before he does a series of events at the Oslo Freedom Forum. It is the first time Ibhais has left Jordan, as well as his wife and two young children, since he was deported from Doha after his release. The timing is apt, given this is five days before Saturday's Champions League final in Munich, where Qatar could enjoy their next great sporting moment. The state-owned Paris Saint-Germain could finally win the competition they are desperate for. The discussion turns to Qatar's previous great sporting moment: the hosting of that World Cup. Ibhais says he couldn't even watch it. Such obstinacy took concerted effort, given that the prison guards apparently rolled huge TVs into the mess hall for all 29 days, with prisoners not allowed to change the channel from BeIN Sport. 'During the World Cup was the worst,' Ibhais says. 'It felt like total defeat. 'OK, it's hard to be cut away from your family, but the feeling of injustice was the hardest thing to cope with. They got what they wanted, here it was, you're there, no one cares and there's nothing you can do. Life goes on, yours doesn't.' It is shortly into telling this story that Ibhais offers what he feels is a crucial caveat. 'I accept I am biased.' How could he not be, given his experience? Ibhais was eventually detained at a prison that was closest to the Khalifa International Stadium, which hosted England's opening 6-2 win over Iran. He later alleged he was 'physically assaulted by the prison guards', before being subjected to 'complete darkness in solitary confinement… with temperatures near freezing as the prison's central air-conditioning was used as a torture device' so that he couldn't sleep for 96 hours. 'That was all true,' Ibhais says, 'because they were so worried I was going to do something before the World Cup. They felt like teaching me a lesson.' Ibhais adds that the conditions in the prison were completely unhygienic. He hasn't actually gone to a doctor since his release, something a little surprising given that he chose to see a therapist before he was even arrested. 'I was having panic attacks because I realised what I was part of, and I couldn't live with it,' Ibhais says. 'That realisation was worse than prison. It is shocking. Prison, I expected. This, I didn't.' It's at this moment that Ibhais feels a point needs to be stressed. Throughout the entire 2022 World Cup cycle, Qatar's persistent narrative was that a young state was going through a journey of development, especially as regards the issue of migrant workers. The plea was for understanding, amid reference to necessarily gradual reforms. Ibhais knows this well, since his job was to push that narrative. 'They couldn't care less,' he says. 'Forget about how they address the whole issue. Listen to how many Qataris talk to their own workers. It is depressing, the way they yell at them, the way they more or less think of these men and women as slaves. 'Even the most progressive, when they're angry, there's zero respect. Maybe they'll apologise later.' Ibhais says this even extended to prison, where detained Qataris essentially 'hired south Asians to clean for them'. He agrees with the analysis that all reforms were 'superficial'. 'They think they are right and moral, just because they are rich. It took me so long to understand they are bad people. I really believed for so long. Even when they actually detained me, even when they forced me to sign a confession that was already printed – even after all of this – I still believed they can't be so bad. 'I was under the impression mid-level officials decided this, and the trial couldn't be swayed.' It's why he says that one sentence from an official – 'You think you can fight the state?' – suddenly made everything so clear. Against that, there nevertheless remains so much mystery to the case, from the motivations to how high it went. Ibhais believes the reason he was detained cuts to the very nature of the state. 'It was the concept of whistleblowing. It was not what I exactly said,' he explains. 'They didn't like that someone can challenge the way they are doing things. 'They are positioning themselves as leaders of change, and all that trust lies with the Supreme Committee. So if you tolerate such behaviour and the Supreme Committee is discredited, you discredit everything. And if you're paying $250bn for this reputational campaign…' Tellingly, Ibhais was mostly housed with 'state security prisoners' and political dissidents. 'They have so many layers of classification but the most important is 'state security' and people they want to isolate from the world.' One question brings a reference to 'people they're afraid of', to which Ibhais interjects. 'They're not afraid of anyone. It's people they want to silence.' He says those first six months were 'extremely hard'. 'I basically lost my life. Feeling helpless and away from my family was devastating. Then I thought 'this might take a long time', so I had to find a way to deal with this.' Ibhais started writing to anyone he could think of, from Amnesty to media. That started to bring some peace of mind, aided by the knowledge his wife could still work in Doha, so their two children – now aged six and eight – could be looked after. He says 'this was part of the deal with the public prosecutor when I signed the confession'. 'Thank God we managed. Of course, all our savings evaporated. I always had hope someone, somewhere, would recognise what was done.' He didn't find that recognition at Fifa, which is one major reason he wants to take action. Despite supplying Fifa with all of his material, Ibhais says he was essentially 'ghosted'. That was just over a year before the World Cup, and Ibhais believes that Qatar felt he was 'low enough that people would forget'. 'There's a hierarchy. There are original Qataris, then from Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, then the westerners, then other Arabic people, then you have Bangladeshis, Indians… I am in the middle. That's why they thought it would be easy to make an example of me.' Ibhais says his treatment greatly eased once the tournament ended. He was even allowed to speak to his family for 15 minutes every week. When he was eventually free with them in March, it was 'like coming back to life'. 'I still feel I am in that moment. It still feels great.' *** There is another element to Ibhais' story. As a World Cup media manager, Ibhais had to deal with journalists like those at The Independent. He outlines how such a state handled such criticism, but also how it influenced him. 'I believed you were being racist,' Ibhais reveals. 'I believed that the US, the UK and Australia were just pissed off because they lost to Qatar.' If that sounds familiar to anyone who has followed the public discussions on 2022, what follows will be even more familiar. 'The whole media strategy that unfortunately I was part of is called 'drop by drop' – feeding a counter-message. We start by letting you say whatever you want, then plant the seeds of doubt. 'What if it's this? Or maybe this…?' 'Have you checked yourself?' 'How about you come and see for yourself?' 'So a journalist like you would say whatever he wants, but if you add a quote from us, we are part of the conversation. 'If someone critical gets an interview, it's only with top people highly trained with key messaging. 'At the same time, we generate as much positive content as possible. So, your content will appear, but also ours, and then we work on the search-engine optimisation to gradually rise step by step. 'We called it 'flip the pyramid'. And because English-speaking media were so critical, we bypassed them for other languages.' Ibhais smiles. 'I put that in place… and then suffered from it for a long time.' So what does Ibhais think about Saturday, and Qatar's PSG potentially becoming European champions? 'At this point, I don't care. Qatar is much more powerful. If I can hold them accountable for what they did to me, it will end there. It's a big fight and there's a lot going on in the world, Ukraine, Gaza… who cares about [Gianni] Infantino?' The final mention is instructive, as it indicates where much of his anger lies. 'Fifa should take most of the blame. They knew what they were getting into, but stood by it. Fifa's policies open the door for any future hosts to do the same as Qatar. They got away with it, and saw how all the negative attention in the world will not be able to touch them.' Ibhais hopes that can change through legal action, but his own story now has a positive note, at least. He can hug his family, just as he dreamed of in that Doha cell. Qatar's Supreme Committee have been contacted for comment.
The Independent
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
He spent three horrific years in a Doha jail, now Abdullah Ibhais wants justice from Qatar and Fifa
Now that Abdullah Ibhais sits happily in Oslo, enjoying the cool air, he can calmly reflect on the moment he realised his life was changing. The former 2022 World Cup worker – described by Amnesty as a Qatar whistleblower – had been going through the state's legal process following his November 2021 arrest, and was at that point optimistic there had just been some misunderstanding. Ibhais describes how, in the middle of the process, one Qatari official came out with the following. 'You think you can fight the state?' Ibhais couldn't do anything but laugh in shock. 'At that moment I realised how deep the issue was.' The Jordanian national was finally released on 11 March 2025, having served his full sentence. In July 2024, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions declared he had been a victim of arbitrary detention and urged Qatari authorities to immediately release him. Human rights groups like FairSquare believe his case serves as a prism for the story of that entire World Cup. Ibhais wasn't just a worker in the preparations for the most watched sporting event in the world, he was a media manager. His case consequently involves the long and controversial build-up, the migrant workers, the media coverage, how Qatar spins and how Qatar works. Ibhais' version is that he went to investigate workers rights' complaints, stood up for them by advising the Supreme Committee to acknowledge their role, before he was the subject of a malicious prosecution. FairSquare say Ibhais provided plenty of evidence for his case. The version from within Qatar points to Ibhais' April 2021 conviction for 'bribery', 'violation of the integrity of tenders and profits' and 'intentional damage to public funds'. Ibhais' conviction was upheld on appeal, although his sentence was reduced from five years to three say there was almost no evidence for this, other than Ibhais' own confession, which he retracted and said was coerced. The human rights body says his allegation of coercion is highly credible. The UN working group's finding that he was a victim of arbitrary detention is also highly significant, especially in light of Fifa 's refusal to comment when contacted by The Independent. He now wants to go further than just fighting the state. He wants to try and sue both Qatar's Supreme Committee and Fifa, for negligence. 'They couldn't even follow their own guidelines,' Ibhais says of Fifa. 'I'll try every possible avenue, either in Switzerland, the US or any country where they have jurisdiction or bilateral agreements with Fifa.' Fifa did previously repeat the line 'any person deserves a trial that is fair and where due process is observed and respected', but FairSquare describe this as meaningless. The Independent covered Ibhais' case during the 2022 World Cup, and speaks to him now in the Norwegian capital, the night before he does a series of events at the Oslo Freedom Forum. It is the first time Ibhais has left Jordan, as well as his wife and two young children, since he was deported from Doha after his release. The timing is apt, given this is five days before Saturday's Champions League final in Munich, where Qatar could enjoy their next great sporting moment. . The discussion turns to Qatar's previous great sporting moment: the hosting of that World Cup. Ibhais says he couldn't even watch it. Such obstinacy took concerted effort, given that the prison guards apparently rolled huge TVs into the mess hall for all 29 days, with prisoners not allowed to change the channel from BeIN Sport. 'During the World Cup was the worst,' Ibhais says. 'It felt like total defeat. 'OK, it's hard to be cut away from your family, but the feeling of injustice was the hardest thing to cope with. They got what they wanted, here it was, you're there, no one cares and there's nothing you can do. Life goes on, yours doesn't.' It is shortly into telling this story that Ibhais offers what he feels is a crucial caveat. 'I accept I am biased.' How could he not be, given his experience? Ibhais was eventually detained at a prison that was closest to the Khalifa International Stadium, which hosted England's opening 6-2 win over Iran. He later alleged he was 'physically assaulted by the prison guards', before being subjected to 'complete darkness in solitary confinement… with temperatures near freezing as the prison's central air-conditioning was used as a torture device' so that he couldn't sleep for 96 hours. 'That was all true,' Ibhais says, 'because they were so worried I was going to do something before the World Cup. They felt like teaching me a lesson.' Ibhais adds that the conditions in the prison were completely unhygienic. He hasn't actually gone to a doctor since his release, something a little surprising given that he chose to see a therapist before he was even arrested. 'I was having panic attacks because I realised what I was part of, and I couldn't live with it,' Ibhais says. 'That realisation was worse than prison. It is shocking. Prison, I expected. This, I didn't.' It's at this moment that Ibhais feels a point needs to be stressed. Throughout the entire 2022 World Cup cycle, Qatar's persistent narrative was that a young state was going through a journey of development, especially as regards the issue of migrant workers. The plea was for understanding, amid reference to necessarily gradual reforms. Ibhais knows this well, since his job was to push that narrative. 'They couldn't care less,' he says. 'Forget about how they address the whole issue. Listen to how many Qataris talk to their own workers. It is depressing, the way they yell at them, the way they more or less think of these men and women as slaves. 'Even the most progressive, when they're angry, there's zero respect. Maybe they'll apologise later.' Ibhais says this even extended to prison, where detained Qataris essentially 'hired south Asians to clean for them'. He agrees with the analysis that all reforms were 'superficial'. 'They think they are right and moral, just because they are rich. It took me so long to understand they are bad people. I really believed for so long. Even when they actually detained me, even when they forced me to sign a confession that was already printed – even after all of this – I still believed they can't be so bad. 'I was under the impression mid-level officials decided this, and the trial couldn't be swayed.' It's why he says that one sentence from an official – 'You think you can fight the state?' – suddenly made everything so clear. Against that, there nevertheless remains so much mystery to the case, from the motivations to how high it went. Ibhais believes the reason he was detained cuts to the very nature of the state. 'It was the concept of whistleblowing. It was not what I exactly said,' he explains. 'They didn't like that someone can challenge the way they are doing things. 'They are positioning themselves as leaders of change, and all that trust lies with the Supreme Committee. So if you tolerate such behaviour and the Supreme Committee is discredited, you discredit everything. And if you're paying $250bn for this reputational campaign…' Tellingly, Ibhais was mostly housed with 'state security prisoners' and political dissidents. 'They have so many layers of classification but the most important is 'state security' and people they want to isolate from the world.' One question brings a reference to 'people they're afraid of', to which Ibhais interjects. 'They're not afraid of anyone. It's people they want to silence.' He says those first six months were 'extremely hard'. 'I basically lost my life. Feeling helpless and away from my family was devastating. Then I thought 'this might take a long time', so I had to find a way to deal with this.' Ibhais started writing to anyone he could think of, from Amnesty to media. That started to bring some peace of mind, aided by the knowledge his wife could still work in Doha, so their two children – now aged six and eight – could be looked after. He says 'this was part of the deal with the public prosecutor when I signed the confession'. 'Thank God we managed. Of course, all our savings evaporated. I always had hope someone, somewhere, would recognise what was done.' He didn't find that recognition at Fifa, which is one major reason he wants to take action. Despite supplying Fifa with all of his material, Ibhais says he was essentially 'ghosted'. That was just over a year before the World Cup, and Ibhais believes that Qatar felt he was 'low enough that people would forget'. 'There's a hierarchy. There are original Qataris, then from Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, then the westerners, then other Arabic people, then you have Bangladeshis, Indians… I am in the middle. That's why they thought it would be easy to make an example of me.' Ibhais says his treatment greatly eased once the tournament ended. He was even allowed to speak to his family for 15 minutes every week. When he was eventually free with them in March, it was 'like coming back to life'. 'I still feel I am in that moment. It still feels great.' *** There is another element to Ibhais' story. As a World Cup media manager, Ibhais had to deal with journalists like those at The Independent. He outlines how such a state handled such criticism, but also how it influenced him. 'I believed you were being racist,' Ibhais reveals. 'I believed that the US, the UK and Australia were just pissed off because they lost to Qatar.' If that sounds familiar to anyone who has followed the public discussions on 2022, what follows will be even more familiar. 'The whole media strategy that unfortunately I was part of is called 'drop by drop' – feeding a counter-message. We start by letting you say whatever you want, then plant the seeds of doubt. 'What if it's this? Or maybe this…?' 'Have you checked yourself?' 'How about you come and see for yourself?' 'So a journalist like you would say whatever he wants, but if you add a quote from us, we are part of the conversation. 'If someone critical gets an interview, it's only with top people highly trained with key messaging. 'At the same time, we generate as much positive content as possible. So, your content will appear, but also ours, and then we work on the search-engine optimisation to gradually rise step by step. 'We called it 'flip the pyramid'. And because English-speaking media were so critical, we bypassed them for other languages.' Ibhais smiles. 'I put that in place… and then suffered from it for a long time.' So what does Ibhais think about Saturday, and Qatar's PSG potentially becoming European champions? 'At this point, I don't care. Qatar is much more powerful. If I can hold them accountable for what they did to me, it will end there. It's a big fight and there's a lot going on in the world, Ukraine, Gaza… who cares about [Gianni] Infantino?' The final mention is instructive, as it indicates where much of his anger lies. 'Fifa should take most of the blame. They knew what they were getting into, but stood by it. Fifa's policies open the door for any future hosts to do the same as Qatar. They got away with it, and saw how all the negative attention in the world will not be able to touch them.' Ibhais hopes that can change through legal action, but his own story now has a positive note, at least. He can hug his family, just as he dreamed of in that Doha cell.
New York Times
7 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
FIFA reforms criticised 10 years on from corruption raid in statement from academics and human rights groups
A decade after a police raid at a Swiss hotel plunged FIFA into crisis, a joint statement signed by academics, campaigners and fans groups has accused football's global governing body of being 'more poorly governed' now than it was then. Seven senior officials were arrested at Zurich's Baur au Lac on the eve of a FIFA Congress on May 27, 2015, as part of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into widespread corruption in the game. Advertisement Within a week of the arrests, Sepp Blatter quit as FIFA president after 17 years in the job, sparking a chain of events that led to current president Gianni Infantino's election in February 2016 and promises of sweeping changes to the organisation's governance. But the joint statement, which was coordinated by London-based human rights group FairSquare, argues that these reforms 'failed to usher in a new era of responsible government at FIFA', citing eight examples of its 'failures'. These include Infantino's close relationships with controversial global leaders, a lack of diversity in senior roles and the award of the 2034 men's World Cup to Saudi Arabia. The statement has 35 signatories, most of whom are academics, but it has also been signed by Fair Game, the campaign group that represents more than 30 British clubs, Norwegian supporters' group Norsk Supporterallianse and Abdullah Ibhais, the former Qatar 2022 official who blew the whistle on labour-rights abuses in the build-up to that World Cup. 'This statement demonstrates not only the rank failure of the reforms enacted under the presidency of Gianni Infantino but also the breadth of expert opposition to and frustration with FIFA's dysfunctional governance model,' said Nick McGeehan, the co-director of FairSquare, the UK-based human rights group which coordinated the joint statement. Portuguese academic and politician Miguel Poiares Maduro, who was ousted as chair of FIFA's governance committee in 2017 after just eight months in the role for blocking the re-election of Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko to FIFA's governing council, did not sign the statement but has posted his support on X. 'An important statement by @fairsquareprojects and many credible experts,' wrote Maduro. 'I'm sad to say, it is quite right in its assessment of FIFA reforms. The time has long passed for a genuine reform of sports governance. When will it finally happen?' Advertisement FIFA has not yet responded to the signatories' specific criticisms but it has issued a statement to highlight how far it believes it has come since the ignominy of the Baur au Lac raid. Describing the scandals of 2015 as 'a turning point for the organisation', FIFA says it has 'been able to change from a toxic organisation to a respected and trusted global sports governing body focusing on its mandate to develop football all around the world'. As evidence of this transformation, it notes that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, 'the very same authorities that had to intervene in FIFA in 2015', have recently visited the organisation's new offices in Miami and are working closely with FIFA ahead of this summer's Club World Cup and next year's men's World Cup. The statement adds that FIFA has introduced a raft of reforms, which have been recognised by other sporting bodies and enabled the Department of Justice to hand back $201million in seized assets to the FIFA Foundation following its investigations into football-related corruption. It concludes by saying 'FIFA is a completely new organisation, with more than 800 staff, the immense majority of whom were hired after 2016'.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How FIFAgate, soccer's biggest scandal, became ‘a missed opportunity' for reform
The 'war room' inside the FBI field office at 26 Federal Plaza in New York filled on the evening of May 26, 2015, with nervous excitement. Attorneys and investigators waded through security, then up to the 23rd floor, to oversee a transatlantic takedown that would shake international soccer. Plainclothes police would pound on hotel doors in Zurich, and arrest prominent FIFA officials; and before long, 10 years ago Tuesday, an unprecedented U.S. probe of "rampant, systemic, deep-rooted" bribery plaguing the beautiful game would burst into public view. So, after months of painstaking work, dozens of sleep-deprived prosecutors and special agents gathered for their seminal moment. And as they waited, with a 161-page indictment under seal, some pondered the magnitude of what they were about to unleash. 'This,' one remembers thinking, 'is gonna change the history of global soccer.' But what, they wondered, would the full impact ultimately be? And 10 years later, some are disappointed or bothered by the complicated answer. 'FIFA,' the non-profit FairSquare wrote in a recent report, 'didn't fix the structural flaws that ultimately led the U.S. authorities to intervene in the first place.' Their case quickly erupted into the biggest corruption scandal in modern sports history. It eventually led to 31 guilty pleas and multiple trial convictions. It recovered hundreds of millions of dollars. It triggered a reckoning at FIFA, the global soccer governing body at the center of the storm, and led to a raft of promised reforms. But a decade later — according to interviews and conversations with dozens of current and former soccer officials, governance experts and attorneys, including some who investigated or prosecuted the U.S. Department of Justice case, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity — some of those promises seem empty. Reforms have been rolled back. 'It's all window dressing,' says Joseph Weiler, a former member of FIFA's governance committee. FIFA, ever since 2016, has argued the opposite. Spokespeople say the organization has been professionalized and transformed. 'Today,' FIFA president Gianni Infantino told Yahoo Sports last month, 'we work in a clear way, a transparent way, and an ethical way.' Insiders point to increased oversight of the billions of dollars that FIFA has since distributed to its member associations. Most believe the bribes once 'endemic,' the ones attached to marketing and media deals for decades, have subsided. But the bribes, as one expert says, 'were a symptom of a larger governance problem.' The presidents of FIFA, its regional confederations and national soccer federations, critics say, are bound together by a network of patronage that allows them to act with 'impunity," perhaps even 'outside the rule of law.' Infantino, who replaced the disgraced Sepp Blatter when Blatter was ousted by the 2015 scandal, has cultivated this network rather than reformed it. He has dismantled or circumvented checks on his power. He has become 'a modern autocrat,' or, in the words of former FIFA governance committee chairman Miguel Maduro, 'a king supremo that makes deals with a few people, and those deals are then imposed across the pyramid of football.' This concentration of power in relatively few hands, experts point out, is precisely what enabled the unchecked bribery U.S. investigators uncovered. But it's also the type of underlying flaw the Department of Justice could not correct. Although a few U.S. officials saw their case as a chance to 'effectuate systemic change throughout a global organization that really didn't play by any rules,' and although their indictment described FIFA as akin to the mafia, they did not charge the organization itself. Instead, the federal statute underpinning the case essentially forced them to classify FIFA and its confederations as 'victims,' ones that had been defrauded by corrupt individuals. And so, as reforms unraveled, the U.S. officials — most of whom have since left the Department of Justice — could only watch from afar, and perhaps rue what one calls "a bit of a lost opportunity, to say, 'Let's go out and fix this up.'" When the scandal erupted on that morning of May 27, 2015, 'FIFA' and rampant corruption became inseparable. It was 'FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges,' per the breaking news story in the New York Times. It was FIFA's election and annual Congress that had been disrupted. It was FIFA's headquarters that Swiss authorities soon raided. Although most of the indicted defendants were more closely tied to marketing companies or FIFA member associations — or the continental confederations of North and South America, CONCACAF and CONMEBOL — the saga became known as 'FIFAgate.' When Richard Weber, chief of the IRS' Criminal Investigation unit, prepared a punchy line for the U.S. government's bombshell announcement, he went with: 'This really is the World Cup of fraud, and today, we're issuing FIFA a red card.' So it was 'FIFA' that flooded front pages worldwide. It was FIFA whose president, Blatter, under immense public pressure, soon resigned. The popular narrative pitted U.S. law enforcement against soccer's global regulator. ESPN's opus, 'The FBI vs. FIFA,' was sold as 'The exclusive account of how a small band of federal agents and an outsized corrupt official brought down the sports world's biggest governing body.' But that, former U.S. officials insist, was not the intent. 'The goal,' says Mike Gaeta, a veteran FBI agent who directed the first few years of the investigation, 'wasn't at all to reform FIFA.' In fact, as they pored over bank records, flipped corrupt executives into cooperators and constructed the case, they were wary of how the world might perceive them. They did not want to shut down tournaments or enrage soccer fans, who, they worried, might ask critically: Why is the world's game any of the U.S. government's business? So they built their own narrative. It was awkward but necessary to align with the 'honest services wire fraud' statute they used to bring the case. FIFA, CONCACAF and CONMEBOL 'were corrupted,' Acting U.S. Attorney Kelly Currie said as his office unveiled the indictment, 'and in that sense, they're the victims.' Prosecutors, of course, understood the irony and intellectual tension of their framing. Incredulous fans and journalists asked: Had soccer really been corrupted by a handful of criminals? Or, rather, had corrupt soccer institutions enabled, and perhaps even incentivized, the criminality? Federal law, though, had no time for the nuanced answer. The victim, however culpable, could not also be a perpetrator. The DOJ did not 'bring down FIFA,' as some experts still put it. 'What FIFA does internally,' Currie said in 2015, 'is a matter for FIFA and its constituent members.' Amid the subsequent uproar, with sponsors fleeing and its bottom line bleeding, FIFA convened a 'Reform Committee,' which wrote that 'the current crisis should also be considered as a unique opportunity for FIFA to renew itself.' 'Significant modifications to [FIFA's] institutional structure and operational processes are necessary to prevent corruption, fraud, self-dealing and to make the organization more transparent and accountable,' the committee, which comprised two representatives from each of FIFA's continental confederations, wrote in its final report. The report, delivered to FIFA's executive board in December 2015 — just as U.S. authorities were preparing to unseal a new indictment charging 16 more soccer officials with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering — included dozens of recommendations. Some were adopted and codified at an extraordinary FIFA congress in February 2016. 'We are opening a new chapter,' FIFA's acting president at the time, Issa Hayatou, told delegates that day. Hours later, the delegates elected Infantino, who said: 'A new era is starting for FIFA as we speak.' And that, for months and eventually years, became the company line. 'The crisis is over," Infantino said less than three months later. It jibed nicely with 'victim status,' an official designation for which FIFA petitioned the U.S. government less than a month after Infantino took office. FIFA, the rhetoric went, had been robbed by its own officials; now that they were gone, FIFA was clean and could be a worthy steward of the hundreds of millions of dollars forfeited by the robbers and promised by the U.S. government to global soccer development. FIFA ultimately spent tens of millions of dollars on lawyers to secure victimhood and, it admitted, to 'avoid prosecution in any future indictment.' And in 2021, after a years-long fight, the Department of Justice agreed to remit up to $200 million-plus to a fund established under the FIFA Foundation. 'I want to sincerely thank the U.S. Justice authorities,' Infantino said in a statement. 'The truth is that, thanks to their intervention back in 2015, we have been able to fundamentally change FIFA from a toxic organization … to a highly esteemed and trusted global sports governing body.' In the five-year interim, though, and the four years since, Infantino has unwound and undermined some of the reforms. As FIFA expanded its executive board to a 37-member Council, in theory to democratize decision-making, it also granted extensive power to a 'Bureau of the Council,' an exclusive group comprising Infantino and the six confederation presidents, who can meet and make private decisions whenever Infantino pleases. He and his deputies also compromised the independence of multiple key committees. An audit and compliance chairman, Domenico Scala, and members of the new governance committee resigned in protest. The chairmen of the ethics committee's two chambers were both ousted and said in a joint statement the 'politically motivated' move put a 'de facto end to the reform efforts.' Maduro, the governance committee chairman, was also pushed aside after resisting Infantino's alleged pressure. More recently, term limits have been stretched or scrapped. A bloated standing committee system, which was stripped down in 2016 to "improve efficiency" and discourage patronage, is being restored and expanded. The reforms have become 'a paper tiger,' Mark Pieth, the leader of FIFA's 2011 Independent Governance Committee, told a Swiss newspaper. 'Everything relevant is gone.' FIFA, in response to criticism, has consistently pointed to the DOJ's restitution as proof of recovery from the scandal. But the U.S. Attorney's office in charge of the case clarified last year that it 'has not endorsed the effectiveness of any of FIFA's current reform efforts.' And critics argue those efforts largely failed. 'A few bad apples were taken out,' Maduro says, 'but the tree that produces them stayed in place.' What the DOJ did do was hold dozens of people accountable for wrongdoing. Former prosecutors and agents also believe they spooked and deterred would-be criminals going forward. But did they eradicate bribery in soccer? 'People in and around a lot of money who have been conducting themself a certain way for years — it's very tough for them to change,' one former U.S. law enforcement official says. 'They'll adapt and improve the way they do things to stay under the radar.' What's changed, that former official says, is that 'things are quiet.' There is no longer a steady drumbeat of enraging allegations. There is no known ongoing investigation with anything remotely close to FIFAgate's scope. When U.S. Attorneys went public with their investigation last decade, they hoped other countries would take the proverbial baton and run; but relatively few did. In fact, as U.S. authorities probed soccer, according to two people close to the case, foreign counterparts would occasionally thank them and tell them: You guys are the only ones willing and capable of doing this. They were willing, in part, because soccer and national politics weren't intertwined; and capable because they had the backing of strong laws, peerless resources and an aggressive extraterritorial mandate. But now, with the 2015 case on its last legs, some wonder whether circumstances have changed. 'Now,' one former prosecutor says, 'you can't even fathom a case like this even really mattering.' Now, experts question whether a repeat is even feasible. The Trump administration has paused enforcement of a key anti-corruption law. The Supreme Court in 2023 limited the application of the 'honest services fraud' statute. A district judge subsequently overturned two convictions in the DOJ's soccer case, because, she wrote, 'the honest services wire fraud statute does not encompass foreign commercial bribery.' (The U.S. Attorney's office has appealed.) In general, says Alexandra Wrage, a Canadian anti-bribery expert, 'international standards, and certainly U.S. standards, have lowered' — and 'dipped to meet FIFA.' FIFA, meanwhile, now boasts of 'excellent relations with President Trump [and] the Trump administration.' Infantino, who has eagerly nurtured the relationship, recently welcomed U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, two Trump loyalists, to FIFA's offices in Miami. Their meeting 'underlined the collaboration that exists between FIFA and the United States of America government,' Infantino said a few days later. With the inaugural Club World Cup, the 2026 men's World Cup and the 2031 women's World Cup all set to be held in the U.S., political pressure could impede any follow-up corruption investigation. 'I think self-interest would absolutely override any other consideration,' Wrage says. And so, FIFA's critics have largely lost hope. They increasingly see a European Union intervention as the only avenue to reform. The U.S. case, in the words of Maduro, 'was a missed opportunity.' This is Part 1 of a two-part series on how power reshaped the world's game. Read Part 2: The 'legal bribery' and duality of Gianni Infantino's FIFA. Henry BushnellSenior reporter Henry Bushnell writes features and covers soccer for Yahoo Sports. He is a Philadelphia native, a Northwestern University graduate, and a Washington D.C. resident. Follow him on Twitter @HenryBushnell. Email him with tips, comments or questions at henrydbushnell@
