FiFA

In December Molde sold Datro David Fofana to Chelsea for a reported 13 million euro, a new record for a transfer from a Norwegian club. But was Fofana Molde’s player? Or did the club steal the attacker from his Ivorian club Abidjan City FC?

Mohamed works as a security guard at a World Cup stadium. He has not been able to sleep for days – the stress and the anxiety getting to him. He wants to return to Dhaka as soon as possible.

In the shadow of the vast gold-clad bowl Lusail stadium, the World Cup’s 1 billion-dollar centrepiece venue resembling the ark of Noah, Joseph sums up his existence, his fate tied to that of the World Cup: “No one sees us.”

They haven’t been paid salaries for the last two months. Meet two African security guards that work for a company that has several Fifa and World Cup assignments during the tournament in Qatar.

According to Fifa, Qatar 2022 is to be the ‘greenest of all World Cups’. But independent reports show that far from being the first carbon-neutral global sports competition in sports history, as promised by Fifa president Gianni Infantino, the forthcoming World Cup will be the dirtiest ever staged.

Politicians, leading academics and international trade unions have praised Qatar for its reforms since they were given the hosting rights to the 2022 World Cup in 2010, following a corrupt process. But how are things really on the ground?

A company directly and heavily involved with the World Cup in Qatar, with thousands of employees, is blackmailing its workers.

“There is something fundamentally wrong with the [Caf] administration”, says Andrew Kamanga, president of the Zambian FA, of the Fifa controlled African confederation.

Since Fifa took control over Caf in 2019, the confederation’s economy has collapsed. Now they are on the verge of bankruptcy.

Without offering an explanation, cash-strapped Caf has removed a valid proposal from the Zambian FA to cut costs. The reason why is closely related to Gianni Infantino’s fight for re-election.