Qatar – Page 2 – Declan Hill – Investigative Journalist & Academic

07SepSeptember 7, 2016

60 Minutes Sport, the Qataris & the Tobacco Industry

There used to be a public health phenomena called Sick Building Syndrome (SBS). Workers in Qatar The idea was that dirty ducts and air vents inside modern buildings were making people sick. In the early 1990s, SBS was linked to lung cancer, asthma and a number of respiratory diseases. Medical conferences were held. Academic journal articles were published. Media stories were written about this potentially dangerous problem. Then the non-smokers rights advocates pointed out that much of the research about SBS...

17MayMay 17, 2016

2 Farces, Turkish Nightmare & Infantino’s Blatter-Lite FIFA

It was not a good week for sport. The Turkish nightmare continues. There are strange doings, as usual, in Singapore and Qatar. However, the big story is that Gianni Infantino's FIFA has now become a Blatter-Lite FIFA: the same organisation, only with better table manners for the media. The key issue is the resignation of Domenico Scala as the Head of the Audit and Compliance Committee. He quit FIFA as Infantino pushed through a measure that would have allowed the FIFA Executive Committee...

23MarMarch 23, 2016

7 Reasons to see The Program

Stephen Frears film The Program about Lance Armstrong’s doping to win the Tour de France has just opened to near unanimous negative reviews and public neglect. This is too bad. It is a superb film and should be watched by anyone with an interest in sports. Some points: 1. Ben Foster’s performance of Lance Armstrong is Oscar-worthy. His acting range is extraordinary. Foster is stunning in showing all the different aspects of Armstrong from a cocky young man to a victim...

25FebFebruary 25, 2016

Insider’s Paradise: Corruption Looms Large Ahead of FIFA Presidential Election

The FIFA presidential election will take place on Friday in Zurich, giving the game's power brokers a golden chance to affect change. But there's a catch. The 207 eligible presidents of the national football federations wield the power to vote, yet these officials are, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, steeped in a world where brazen criminals have repeatedly milked the sport for their own personal profit. ** This is a feature article for Bleacher Report. You can read below or at...

22FebFebruary 22, 2016

The Battle for the Soul of FIFA & Boris Johnson’s EU Football Nightmare

In Zurich to witness the fight that one of the candidates describes as, “the most important in the history of FIFA”. If a candidate, like Sheikh Salman of Bahrain with the human rights allegations against him, wins, the credibility of FIFA will be over. Salman is firmly in the lead with delegates officially committed. The other four candidates are battling, but it is unclear how anyone can catch Salman at this point. Here is the basic math of the election. There are...

30NovNovember 30, 2015

Potemkin Villages, Scapegoats and Fake Qatari Fans: 4 Things We Learned From This Week in International Sports Corruption

On the eve of FIFA’s executive committee meeting that is expected to rubber-stamp the decision of their ‘ethics committee’ (sic) to ban Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini from the international football world, four points: 1) Is the internal FIFA reform - a believable process? No. It is a Potemkin village of a battle against corruption. From far away, it seems good. Once you get close, the obvious conflicts of interests emerge. What is occurring now is a frantic effort by FIFA...

04NovNovember 4, 2015

The Walking Oxymoron Strikes Again & 2 Good News Stories

“Quick! Lets have a conference. Invite everyone. In case there is some poor bastard in the field who is actually doing something useful." Chief-Superintendent (former) Leonard Powell, Metropolitan Police Ho hum. Another month. Another ridiculous conference put on by the walking oxymoron that is the Qatari group for ‘integrity in sport’ – the International Centre for Sports Security (ICSS). This one is being held in New York and is called ‘Securing Sport’. It is the usual mixture of superannuated policemen, sports bureaucrats,...

15OctOctober 15, 2015

7 Things to Know about the FIFA Scandal

Now that Sepp Blatter has been driven off into the sunset from FIFA, it is time to reflect on the long-sorry, scandal ridden years of his reign. Seven things then that we have learned: 1) The Watergate of Sports Stories: It was not ESPN, nor any of the other big sports channels or well-established sports journalists who broke the FIFA story. The real heroes are a small collection of journalists who are largely outsiders. As the big sports media empires frantically...

23SepSeptember 23, 2015

Requiem for a Fixer

He was one of the best. Yet in the end, he was brought down in a futile attempt to fix a little team in a forgettable tournament. For those readers who do not follow the intricacies of the Singaporean legal system, you may have missed the story this week, that one was imprisoned for four years for match-fixing. The actual case involved Pal bribing the coach of the East Timor national team and some of his players with 15,000$ How Pal...

15SepSeptember 15, 2015

Dead Catting, Image Laundering and Why You Should Have Nothing to Do with the ICSS

No independent, intelligent or credible person should have anything to do with the International Centre for Sports Security (ICSS) – the Qatari sponsored organization on sports governance and integrity. The ICSS is like the great Yiddish joke: what is the definition of chutzpah? The man who kills his mother and father and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan. To review: the Qataris are the people who ushered in yet another chapter of FIFA integrity...