IAN LADYMAN: Harry Kane FINALLY grasped the Qatar nettle, but England MUST continue to call out World Cup hosts over human rights abuses… just having a meeting about it feels underwhelming
- Qatar will host the 2022 World Cup this winter despite human rights concerns
- England have lagged behind other nations in addressing these concerns
- But Harry Kane has now started to get the discussion going for the Three Lions
- England have finally picked up the ball and must now start to run with it
Gareth Southgate and the FA have said for some time that the England squad would get together and discuss the delicate subject of human rights abuse in Qatar, the venue for this year’s winter World Cup.
So to finally hear on Wednesday of a meeting that lasted only half an hour at St George’s Park on Tuesday night felt underwhelming.
Members of the Denmark team have already met with Amnesty International. They are displaying messages critical of Qatar on their training kit and reducing commercial activity around the World Cup. Norway discussed a possible boycott of the tournament a year ago. The German and Dutch national teams wore T-shirts expressing their concerns around the same time.
England captain Harry Kane (front centre in training on Tuesday) has finally led England’s vocal approach to tackling the delicate subject of human rights abuse in Qatar
Germany players have previously aired their concerns with t-shirt protests from March 2021
England? It was hard not to conjure up images of Southgate standing in the canteen with a clipboard this week while members of his squad drew doodles on their napkins.
That is unfair of course. Southgate and his players have a pretty impeccable record on the things that matter. However, it does feel as though England have been a little slow on this issue from the start.
Now the subject has finally been broached by captain Harry Kane, it matters less what has been done so far but what happens next. England have finally picked up the ball and must run with it. This is an issue that is not going away and nor should it.
England manager Gareth Southgate (above) and his team have a good record when it comes to addressing sensitive issues that need to be brought to publicly attention
England stars train at St George’s Park ahead of a Saturday friendly with Switzerland
Questions about the abuse of migrant construction workers in Qatar and discrimination towards the gay and lesbian community will follow England and many of the other competing nations all the way to Doha. It is fundamental to the very staging of the tournament.
With that in mind, it would be helpful if Kane and his team-mates saw this week’s exchanges as the start of a conversation rather than the end of it. Kane was eloquent on the matter on Wednesday. There is no reason to feel the Tottenham centre forward was not genuine in what he said. In calling for the World Cup to shine a light so bright on the inequalities that exist in Qatar that it leads to permanent change, Kane delivered a powerful and important message.
Southgate and his team could do worse than make that the centre point of all that they say and do between now and November.
Workers continue to build infrastructure around the Lusail Stadium ahead of the World Cup
The operation has continued inside the venue which will host this year’s World Cup final
Workers are pictured lying on the streets near a World Cup stadium to be used this year
The tournament will be hosted in Qatar this coming winter despite human rights concerns
It is not the England team’s fault that the World Cup is taking place in Qatar. Blame FIFA cronyism for that. It is also asking a lot for a player to say he does not wish to go.
But it is not asking too much for players to have opinions, to make sure they understand the issues and to talk openly about them. There is nothing to be scared of here. Every word spoken on the matter takes us a little closer to where we really need to be and both sides of the argument are available to examine on the internet.
England’s players are on the whole a modern and open-minded group. Many of them were at the forefront of our game’s current alliance with the Black Lives Matter movement. Southgate himself said at the weekend: ‘I’m not sure that just wearing a T-shirt (about Qatar) makes a difference. I don’t totally know what we can do in every aspect.’
Kane has said this week that England stars ‘never shy away from important issues’
Many stars were at the forefront of footballs’s alliance with the Black Lives Matter movement
That felt like a rare public misstep from the England manager. Yes, a T-shirt or an armband perhaps equates to only noise but the truth is that when England players make a noise about something then people do tend to look up and start to listen. Modern footballers do have a voice and England’s players will be heard when others perhaps will not.
Ultimately, as we move forward, this will come down to attitude. England and the FA can either see this subject as an uncomfortable and unwelcome distraction, a burden. Or they can embrace a clear opportunity to be at the forefront of something powerful and meaningful, something more important than 22 players and a football.
When a World Cup takes place somewhere as corrupt and unbalanced as Qatar, it is not possible to ‘just concentrate on the game’. To attempt to do so over the next eight months would be quite wrong.