Description
This article defends the conclusion that the FIFA Men’s World Cup in Qatar should not be boycotted by rich countries from the global North. The master argument for this conclusion is underpinned by considerations about the economic background conditions in guest workers’ home countries. Three arguments are then considered that have as their conclusion that the World Cup should be boycotted. These arguments are, respectively, entitled “The slavery argument”, “The exploitation argument” and the “The clean hands argument”. It is argued that each of these arguments is unsound. After having shown that the slavery argument is unsound, the article continues by teasing out what a proponent of the argument is committed to. This is a useful exercise because it shows that being a proponent of the slavery argument has demanding implications for what one can believe in domains that have nothing to do with the World Cup. This argumentative strategy is repeated in the discussions of the exploitation argument and the clean hands argument. Section seven contains a discussion of an argument for a boycott that centres on the process through which Qatar was awarded the World Cup. This argument is also rejected. The article lists several ways in which guest workers in Qatar are wronged, but this fact about how guestworkers are treated does not justify a boycott by rich countries from the global North.| Period | 23 Mar 2022 |
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| Held at | University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway, Norway |
| Degree of Recognition | International |