The World Cup is finally upon us and every minority appears to be taking as much of a kicking as the balls as Fifa adopts contortionist levels of bending over backwards to appease its host nation.
With yellow cards threatened for armbands supporting minority love and solidarity; flimflamming over whether people can drink alcohol out loud after the tournament took Budweiser’s boozy shilling; and the sportswashing of the deaths and disabling injuries of construction workers who built the stadia and necessary infrastructure, it’s not really a surprise that disabled people are being talked about by Fifa with the same abhorrent amount of misguidance and contempt as queer people and people of colour.
I’m not even sure it has noticed that it’s running the World Cup on the International Day of People with Disabilities on December 3.
Fifa President Gianni Infantino gave a baffling perspective on all of us minority whingers by proclaiming that he, a white, Swiss-Italian bloke who has never declared himself to be disabled, “had very strong feelings…”
Those feelings were all based on nationalities and protected characteristics.
“Today – I feel (dramatic pause) Qatari!… African!… gay!… disabled!” he said in all sincerity while gesturing at his non-disabled body with his hands.
Grazie, Gianni mio, but disability isn’t a feeling. It’s a day to day lived reality for a billion people around the world – 15% of the global population.
It’s not something you get to try on for size because you’re feeling the Paddington hard stare of the world because you chose to host a multibillion pound kickabout in a nation rife with human rights abuses.
I think you’re confusing the real world with fiction. You are not some confused Pollyanna version of Spartacus.
You’re disabled, or you’re not. It’s that simple. Many disabled people are proud to be disabled, and you’re not in a place (yet – although that will in all likelihood change given circumstances and ageing) to join our beautiful club.
The data about disabled people in Qatar itself is scant. It recognises only 0.5% of its 2.931 million population as being disabled. This is wildly outside of international percentage norms of 15-25%, which suggests a major problem with data gathering, or, perhaps nefariously, with disabled people being recognised but officially ignored.
The Qatari e-government website says that “congenital factors and disease are the most common causes for disabilities”. But international data suggests this is highly unlikely, with injuries accounting for 30-50% of disability everywhere else in the world. Can we believe the official Qatari stance?
The migrant population of Qatar swelled to 2.1 million in the decade running up to the World Cup, with the vast majority involved in construction. So where is the data on those who became disabled because of poor health and safety protocols? As non-residents, it appears not to exist.
Estimates put the World Cup construction work death toll at 6,500 people. Statistics for those injured on top of this outrageous death tally figure are impossible to find, but it is highly likely that if the death toll is astronomical, the injury, and subsequent disability tally, would be even higher.
I tried to find out how disabled Qatari people feel about how they are treated in their country and could only find reference to one TV programme 15 years ago where a whopping 79% of disabled people felt they were mistreated and subject to a glaring lack of equity in society.
The government website proudly states that, by law, it keeps two per cent of government agency and public jobs back for disabled people. But in a nation which hides abuse behind a gleaming public image, it’s questionable, or outright (foot)balls.
