By Arnd Wiegmann
BRIG, Switzerland (Reuters) – An activist group erected protest billboards in FIFA boss Gianni Infantino’s Swiss home town of Brig on Wednesday to demand the world soccer body compensate migrant workers for alleged human rights abuses in Qatar, host of the football World Cup.
The mobile billboards carried the messages “Infantino: your family were migrants”, “Thousands like them were victims of this World Cup”, and “Compensate them now”.
The protest by the Avaaz campaign group also included an Infantino impersonator holding a World Cup trophy.
Qatar, where foreigners make up most of the 2.9 million population, has faced intense criticism from human rights groups over its treatment of migrant workers.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported last year that at least 6,500 migrants — many of them working on World Cup projects — had died in Qatar since it won the right in 2010 to stage the World Cup.
Hassan Al Thawadi, the secretary general of Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, said in a TV interview with British journalist Piers Morgan aired last month that the number of migrant worker deaths at World Cup-related projects was “between 400 and 500”.
Amnesty and other rights groups have led calls for FIFA to compensate migrant workers in Qatar for human rights abuses by setting aside $440 million, matching the World Cup prize money.
FIFA has said it was assessing Amnesty’s proposal and implementing an “unprecedented due diligence process in relation to the protection of workers involved”.
FIFA has said it was working with the organising committee and had already compensated a number of workers. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
The EU parliament last month approved a resolution that calls on FIFA to help compensate the families of migrant workers who died, as well as workers who suffered rights abuses, during preparations for the World Cup.
(Reporting by Arnd Wiegmann, writing by Michael Shields, Editing by William Maclean)
