French prosecutor says they may open probe into 2022 vote and Platini’s role
May 31 – French authorities say they are considering launching their own investigation into Qatar being awarded the right to host the 2022 World Cup.
May 31 – French authorities say they are considering launching their own investigation into Qatar being awarded the right to host the 2022 World Cup.
May 2 – Qatar’s 2022 World Cup organisers have come under renewed scrutiny after announcing than an Indian steelworker employed on a World Cup site has died.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 22 – Gianni Infantino wasted no time, on his first trip to Qatar since becoming FIFA president, in stressing the need for the 2022 World Cup hosts to maintain efforts to improve workers’ welfare.
March 24 – The International Labour Organisation (ILO), one of the oldest established United Nations agencies with 186 member states, says Qatar is making progress toward ending forced labour and improving conditions for migrant workers but that the real test will be whether it actually enforces new legislation by an ILO-imposed December deadline.
March 22 – Organisers of the 2022 Qatar World Cup are considering the option of housing fans under the stars in Bedouin-style super-tents.
By Samindra Kunti
February 9 – Qatar will award $22 billion worth of new contracts in 2016 as the Emirate maintains its spending spree in advance of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 15 – Hassan Al-Thawadi, head of Qatar’s 2022 World Cup organising committee who was the public face of the surprise ballot victory five years ago, says his team has not been contacted by any officials from either the US or Swiss investigations into widespread football corruption and has repeated he does not expect the Gulf state to be stripped of host status.
By Samindra Kunti
October 6 – Qatar’s infrastructure work for the 2022 FIFA World Cup is progressing with the Al Khalifa stadium expected to be delivered by 2017, while work on the Lusail stadium has commenced.
By Paul Nicholson
September 24 – Sylvia Schenk, the former German athlete and lawyer who leads the Sport working group of the Sport and Rights Alliance has said that Qataris have a “right to catapult themselves into modernity and I find it a very exciting development”, Referring to the programme of labour reform that Qatar has begun, she said that the “World Cup can be an accelerator for change beyond the infrastructure”.
By Paul Nicholson
September 17 – Qatar has started site work on its sixth stadium, the 80,000-seat Lusail Stadium which will host the opening match and final of the 2022 World Cup and which will be the centrepiece of the event.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 12 – Qatar hopes to finally reveal how many stadiums it will use in total for the 2022 World Cup by the end of this year.
By Andrew Warshaw in Zurich
May 26 – You know instinctively when battle lines start to be drawn for FIFA presidential elections. A raft of media organisations camp outside the various confederation hotels keen to pick up any gossip in terms of how the ballot is likely to play out and any late tactical changes of allegiance.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 6 – Qatar’s labour minister has pledged to abolish the country’s controversial ‘kafala’ employment system, which has become a major focus of criticism since the Gulf state was awarded the 2022 World Cup, before the end of this year.
May 1 – Speaking in Qatar, Danny Jordaan, CEO of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and now president of the South African Football Association, drew parallels with Qatar’s plans for 2022 and the first edition of the finals tournament on the African continent in 2010.
April 23 – Qatar’s 2022 World Cup organisers have unveiled plans for a fifth stadium as they attempt to focus on infrastructure despite the continuing scrutiny about workers rights and the fact the tournament will be staged in winter.