Xavi Sells Out to Qatar aka Chemical Xavi

Double the rate in the European Union? Is that supposed to be surprising though? (Claims made aside)
 
Rowem said:
Reductio ad Fergyum sounds the best spoken but looks weird written. Ad Fergieum? Not sure if that's grammatically correct.

Ad Fergusonum is too clunky, ad SirAlexum is a bit better.

It's irrelevant really because I don't actually care, it's merely a smug and elaborate way for me to take the piss. Self-awareness bomb or what.
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I do love a bit of white text.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
It's hard to say... but ultimately, it comes down to whether you can seperate the World Cup causing deaths, and the country causing deaths. Where/when do people take the stand?
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Well ideally at the stage where people start getting exploited, treated as slaves and losing their lives needlessly?

It doesn't matter if their building for the World Cup or building the world's largest petting zoo, people should take a stand as soon as basic human rights are violated. But the reason people are getting even more outraged by this is that- by not speaking out- our sport and indeed the western world are effectively endorsing the treatment of these workers. Football has been deemed more important than the lives of those laborers in Qatar and it's just a sick reminder of the world we live in, the corruption within FIFA and the complete lack of nobility of players we idolise. Really, has even one pro come out and spoken against these atrocities? It's obscene.

The whole thing is just a huge farce, and another nail in the dream that football is the 'working man's sport'. It's a rich man's plaything, carried out by pampered drones who happen to be extremely talented. I hate that I still love football tbh, and I long for just one pro to speak up for those worker's in Qatar. I won't be watching the World Cup, but I can't blame the hundreds of millions who still will.
 
SmashedHombre said:
Well ideally at the stage where people start getting exploited, treated as slaves and losing their lives needlessly?

It doesn't matter if their building for the World Cup or building the world's largest petting zoo, people should take a stand as soon as basic human rights are violated.
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I agree, I think it was @Eboue that brought up the apartheid comparison, and I think there are some parallels to be drawn.
 
Theafonis said:
I don't want to perpetuate rumours but Xavi was seen with men countless times. Maybe that was his younger years since he has a family now.
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Amazing
Nanook said:
Lots of migrants have died in Qatar but it's expected. The country has an estimated 1.4 million migrant workers living there, that graph includes all workers not just ones working on World Cup stadiums. Around 250 Indian workers die every year in Qatar but there's 500,000 of them in total. They're actually less likely to die in Qatar than they would be back home in India.
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Nanook said:
It isn't even at work, originally I thought it was. It includes heart attacks, car accidents and other causes of death.
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If anyone wants more information on this; Channel 4 has a great fact-check article
http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-migrant-workers-dying-qatar/20977

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But also

The Embassy of Nepal said 191 Nepalese workers died in 2013, adding that “most deaths were a result of cardiac arrest”, according to DLA Piper.

A former Nepali ambassador to Doha has put a more precise figure on the proportion of migrant worker deaths attributable to “sudden” heart attacks: 55 per cent.

This is back-of-envelope stuff, but let’s say there are indeed about 100 sudden cardiac deaths out of 400,000 Nepalese workers.

The Qatari argument is that this is better than the figures for Nepal.

Public health expert Professor Martin McKee from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said the Qataris appear to be making two mistakes here.

They seem to be comparing deaths from sudden cardiac death in Qatar with the whole death toll from all cardiovascular and circulatory disease reported in the Global Burden of Disease database.

Prof McKee thinks it would be better to single out one category of heart problem – ischemic heart disease – and narrow the deaths down to the 20 per cent or so of those deaths that occur suddenly.

It’s also misleading to compare the overwhelmingly male and mostly young adult Nepalese population in Qatar with the whole population of Nepal, especially because only those who are healthy will go to work in Qatar.

All things considered, Prof McKee thinks we would expect to see in the order of 12 deaths per 100,000 young Nepalese men a year from sudden heart attacks in their home country. That is a lot less than the 100 or so dying in Qatar.
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Nanook said:
So you'd expect that 12 out of every 100,000 dying from sudden heart attacks and in Qatar you it's 25? Given the climate is it so surprising that heart attacks are more common? Each death is of course tragic but 13 more than you'd expect for every 100,000 people, it's not that bad.
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No, instead of 12 for every 100,000 - its 100's per every 100,000
 
Nanook said:
No it's not, the 100 figure is the total amount of deaths from heart attacks of the Nepalese workers, there is 400,000 of them. It's 25 / 100,000 when the rate should be 12 / 100,000.
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Ah yeah - but still that's over double - which is pretty bad whatever way you look at it.

You should also consider that Nepal is a 3rd world country, Qatar is - or has aspirations of being - a first world country.
 
Nanook said:
So you'd expect that 12 out of every 100,000 dying from sudden heart attacks and in Qatar it's 25? Given the climate is it so surprising that heart attacks are more common? Each death is of course tragic but 13 more than you'd expect for every 100,000 people, it's not that bad.
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You are right, 12 deaths from heart attacks per 100k per year, and there is 400k, so 48 deaths would be expected normally.

Approximately double what it should be, and an investigation should obviously be launched by Qatar, although order of magnitudes lower than what is being reported. (One order of magnitude is 10 times lower/higher)

From Qatars on health strategy document:
“However, expert opinion suggests a rate of about four to five fatalities per 100,000 workers, approximately double the rate in the European Union.”
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On Press Freedom:
It is difficult for journalists to gather more information on the ground.

Qatar gets a red rating from Reporters Without Borders, indicating a “difficult situation” for press freedom. Last month a BBC team was arrested and interrogated while trying to talk to migrant workers in the country.

ITV News managed to film Nepalese workers in the country, as well as the families of dead migrants being flown back to Nepal in coffins.
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Channel 4's Verdict:
The verdict

It’s possible to have some sympathy with both sides here. The Qataris are justifiably angry that many media outlets – including Channel 4 News – have suggested that more than 1,200 deaths are directly attributable to the World Cup when the truth is far more complicated.

On the other hand, human rights groups are keen to not allow Qatar to stake a claim to the moral high ground over this one statistic, when it faces so many other allegations over the treatment of migrant workers.

These include claims that migrants: are reduced to the status of slaves by the “kafala” sponsorship system which means employers can confiscate passports and withdraw exit visas, effectively them in Qatar; are denied trade union representation; are often not paid in full or on time; are forced to live in cramped accommodation. This is only a partial list.

And let’s not forget that the central problem here is the lack of complete data.

We don’t know how many workers die in industrial accidents each year. We don’t know if the figure is more or less than countries that are not hosting a World Cup. We don’t know which exactly precisely which medical conditions are killing the most migrants.

We don’t know these things because Qatar isn’t telling us.
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I have to say, @Nanook has fought a hard game here. I went into this thinking he must be talking crap, but the truth is far murkier than what has been widely reported.
 
Brown Toothpick said:
Is Sir Alex Ferguson's legacy tarnished by his support for Qatar? Raul's? Batistuta? Guardiola? Zidane?
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Fergie backed the bid in 2010 as far as i'm aware, that's the only thing i've found on the issue:

Qatar's dreams of hosting the 2022 World Cup were given a surprise boost on Wednesday when Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson said they were "definitely achievable" despite the searing summer heat.

"I would back the Qatar bid," Ferguson told a sports coference. "I admire their purpose and vision."

Ferguson added that the Gulf state had a "marvellous chance" of hosting the finals, even amid worries about temperatures that can rise to 50 Celsius.

His remarks came shortly after world soccer's governing body FIFA published its technical reports on the bids to stage the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

FIFA said that, despite proposals for cooling the stadiums, Qatar's bid to host the 2022 tournament could pose a potential health risk because of the midsummer heat.

Qatari organisers say they have tackled the issue by constructing climate-controlled, zero-carbon emitting stadiums. The country has harnessed solar-powered technology to cool stadiums to about 27 Celsius.

Ferguson said the idea of dismantling modular stadia to be shipped to developing countries would be "absolutely fantastic" for football across the world.

All of Qatar's stadiums would be partly dismantled after the finals, with the extra seating shipped to developing nations who could reconstruct them as smaller stadiums for their own use.

"Addressing the hot climate issue and transporting the stadia to countries is very clever," added Ferguson.

Qatar is competing with the United States, South Korea, Japan and Australia for the right to host the 2022 tournament. It would be the first Middle East country to stage the event.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter will announce the winning bid in Zurich on December 2, following a vote by the executive committee.
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That was even before the voting process, there was no talk of corruption or any other accusations regarding workers safety or even talks about moving it to November, he just admired the ideas behind the bid which if i recall correctly too many people found them impressive at the time, including plenty of posters here.
 
rcoobc said:
You are right, 12 deaths from heart attacks per 100k per year, and there is 400k, so 48 deaths would be expected normally.

Approximately double what it should be, and an investigation should obviously be launched by Qatar, although order of magnitudes lower than what is being reported. (One order of magnitude is 10 times lower/higher)

From Qatars on health strategy document:


On Press Freedom:


Channel 4's Verdict:
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Professor McKee focused on Ischemic Heart Disease in coming up with his 12 per 100,000 estimate. In the population we're concerned about it is likely that the most common cause of sudden cardiac arrest would be Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy rather than IHD. Without autopsy results it is impossible to say what proportion of the 100 or so deaths from sudden cardiac arrest were attributable to ISD and what portion to HCM (or other causes). It is unlikely, however, that ISD would be the primary cause in all (or even most) of them. In a population of 400,000 (predominantly young) males there would be likely to be in the order of 700 with some degree of HCM. Would more of them die as a result of working long hours in the conditions found in Qatar as opposed to the "normal" conditions found in Nepal - your guess is as good as mine.

On a similar note, the Indian government has stated that the death rate among the 600,000 Indian migrant workers in Qatar is about 25% of that found in a like aged population in India. This is in no way adjusted for the fact that the migrant worker population is inherently much more healthy than the like aged population - self selection and Qatari health checks ensure this. What we don't know is how much of the mortality in India is attributable to factors that would preclude an individual becoming a migrant worker.

When I looked up annual mortality statistics in the construction industry I found an interesting range. In the EU the average is around 2 per 100,000; In Portugal the mortality rate is almost 25 per 100,000; in the USA the rate is 9.5 per 100,000 (all these are 2012 figures). The Qatari rate of around 10 per 100,000 seems to be well in line with the rest of the world. (Particularly so because the migrant workers are working much longer hours than the comparables and mortality is a function of hours worked rather than the number of individuals working those hours.)

The only thing I've got out of the coverage of this "issue" is the danger of rushing to judgement without stopping to think about what the data are actually telling us. Are there migrant worker fatalities that can be indisputably linked to working long hours in the hot sun - almost certainly. Are there fewer migrant worker fatalities from causes that might have affected them if they'd stayed home - also, almost certainly. Which predominates - we don't (and, I suspect, can't) know.
 
It's nice to see that there's a critical appraisal of those mortality figures going on here. Far too many people were sucked in by that original graphic when it came out.

One thing to add is that, on small construction sites in Qatar, the general approach to health and safety has been pretty poor. The local industry has not developed the sort of best practice that is typically used in the UK for all sorts of things like providing the right equipment for manual handling and making sure there are barriers at floor edges when working at height. With the big influx of international contractors, that is beginning to change. Where projects are properly monitored (and that's something that still needs to improve) there are good examples of safe working, that can be used as case studies to improve standards more generally.
 
I never really understand these moves. He's loaded with money anyway and honestly extra $2m or $3m he's going to make there as opposed to MLS or some smaller than Barcelona European side aren't going to make that much difference. United States is the most logical direction for older players, good money, decent level of competitiveness, good stadiums with decent attendances and a nice and safe country to live in.
 
ravelston said:
When I looked up annual mortality statistics in the construction industry I found an interesting range. In the EU the average is around 2 per 100,000; In Portugal the mortality rate is almost 25 per 100,000; in the USA the rate is 9.5 per 100,000 (all these are 2012 figures). The Qatari rate of around 10 per 100,000 seems to be well in line with the rest of the world. (Particularly so because the migrant workers are working much longer hours than the comparables and mortality is a function of hours worked rather than the number of individuals working those hours.).
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So you'd go against the C4 report that it's more like 25 per 100,000?

lynchie said:
It's nice to see that there's a critical appraisal of those mortality figures going on here. Far too many people were sucked in by that original graphic when it came out.

One thing to add is that, on small construction sites in Qatar, the general approach to health and safety has been pretty poor. The local industry has not developed the sort of best practice that is typically used in the UK for all sorts of things like providing the right equipment for manual handling and making sure there are barriers at floor edges when working at height. With the big influx of international contractors, that is beginning to change. Where projects are properly monitored (and that's something that still needs to improve) there are good examples of safe working, that can be used as case studies to improve standards more generally.
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With the Kafala system in place, it's no surprise that health and safety is being neglected.
 
Sarni said:
I never really understand these moves. He's loaded with money anyway and honestly extra $2m or $3m he's going to make there as opposed to MLS or some smaller than Barcelona European side aren't going to make that much difference. United States is the most logical direction for older players, good money, decent level of competitiveness, good stadiums with decent attendances and a nice and safe country to live in.
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It's just crazy money. If you believe media reports, he's getting paid more than double of what Gerrard will get at LA Galaxy. Not to mention he'll live like a king and his living expenses won't be as high as LA.
 
kps88 said:
It's just crazy money. If you believe media reports, he's getting paid more than double of what Gerrard will get at LA Galaxy. Not to mention he'll live like a king and his living expenses won't be as high as LA.
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All right but this is a player who has earned €5m a year or more on average for the past decade and will continue to earn significant money after he had hung up his boots. Sure he could use extra €4m or so but is it really worth it in this case?

I reckon it's the fact that Xavi has been seen as an example for so long that makes everyone react more to it than they would react to the same being done by someone else.
 
All his football dreams are coming true. Watching the U-17 Oman v Kuwait must be deeply inspirational.

Meanwhile, Xavi said the very sparse crowd for his first Qatar Stars League game in the comfortable 4-0 win at Al Mesaimeer on Sunday was not reflective of a lack of interest in football within the country.

"What surprises me about Qatar is that they are football fanatics," he said. "Although they don't go to the stadium, on Monday they know all about everything, plus Madrid and Barca too."

Xavi added that he was taking advantage of the excellent facilities at Al-Sadd to take his first steps in coaching.

"The facilities are spectacular," he said. "It is all very well organised and I am trying to get stuck in with the next generation of Qatari players -- the under 17s, under 19s. I am living pure football. Now I can watch an under-17 game between Oman and Kuwait. I watch football from many gulf countries, plus all the [big] leagues, as I have always done."
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Sounds like the guy who's just been dumped who says "I don't even care, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me" whilst fighting back tears
 
Snake Plissken said:
Sounds like the guy who's just been dumped who says "I don't even care, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me" whilst fighting back tears
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See Richard Keys for details.
 
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