Is the England football team going to boycott Qatar over anti-homosexuality laws?

Now the Euros are well underway I hope we can focus on the football rather than the tedious debate about footballers “taking the knee”. The latest round in the tiresome culture war is another fine example of how participating in it turns one’s brains into mush. It’s a colossal waste of time.

Critics of taking the knee pretend they really think that England footballers are supporting an American Marxist political movement rather than making a symbolic gesture to oppose racism. Only a racist could disagree with the basic statement “black lives matter”, which is what the players are really rallying around, accompanied by a gesture which goes back to American footballer Colin Kaepernick who took the knee during the national anthem before a match in 2016.

On the other side, those who jumped into another cultural battle don’t realise they’re nibbling on the bait being dangled by their opponents. Spending their time getting involved in pointless social media arguments helps to distract from the performance of government and allows the right to say the left wants to destroy capitalism and defund the police.

Ultimately, taking the knee is a powerful statement that will unfortunately achieve very little. Worst of all, it’s getting in the way of a far more important debate about the hypocrisy, warped morality and corruption of the football authorities who are enjoying basking in the reflected glory of well-meaning footballers.

FIFA, UEFA and other governing bodies can support the actions of the players and feel self-satisfied while taking little effective action to tackle prejudice in the game and often endorsing it if it means they get rich.

There were no qualms about hosting the world cup in Russia, despite high levels of racism in Russian football and state sanctioned discrimination against LGBT people in Russian society. Nothing stopped that gravy train rolling, not spikes in racist and homophobic chanting, nor allegations of corruption or the poising of Sergei Skripal.

UEFA continually disappoint with their paltry punishments for proven acts of racism, such as the tokenistic 10-match ban given to Slavia Prague’s Ondrej Kudela for calling Rangers midfielder Glen Kamara a “f***ing monkey” in a Europa League game. This just makes it seem as if calling a black player a “monkey” is bad, but not that bad in the minds of the suits at UEFA.

The fact is that supporting football players taking the knee requires no effort and costs no money, thus it’s a good way of the football authorities to deflect attention away from their lack of any action that might cause them difficulty – such as refusing to award the 2018 World Cup to Russia, reversing the disgraceful decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar and rooting out homophobia, a form of discrimination that is so rife and unopposed in football that it is pretty much accepted.

Any speculative discussion about whether to even consider Qatar as a World Cup host should have been shut down immediately simply because homosexuality is illegal in Qatar. It wasn’t, because homophobia is acceptable in football and the dinosaurs running the game couldn’t care less. Sepp Blatter, the then President of FIFA, advised homosexuals to “refrain from sexual activity.” That’s how seriously they take homophobia.

It’s a sad indictment of the game that so few footballers are able to be openly gay because they will face serious ridicule from the stands and no support from the authorities. If football authorities took this seriously there would be a major campaign across the global game to stamp it out. There would be serious punishments for fans, players and clubs who express homophobia, open support for Pride and LGBT branding to support the community.

None of this will happen because it would be difficult and would cost money. Instead, the issue is ignored.

Then again, is it any surprise that the greasy palmed men who run football ignore this issue when they ignore the disgusting conditions that migrants work in to build the necessary infrastructure to host the tournament? More than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar since it won the right to host the World Cup.

Workers are being exploited; some are even being subjected to forced labour.  This doesn’t matter to FIFA, its sponsors and the construction companies involved in building stadiums that will become giant white elephants post 2022. They are going to make a bucketload of money.

Meanwhile, workers are told they can’t change jobs, can’t leave the country and have to wait months until they get paid. They often live in cramped, dirty and unsafe accommodation. Employers abuse them with corrupt practices such as refusing to provide or renew residence permits, meaning the workers are too scared to leave the site where they are employed.

Complaints are met by intimidation and threats. As one migrant worker on Khalifa Stadium told Amnesty International, “I went to the company office, telling the manager I wanted to go home [back to my country] because always my pay is late. The manager screamed at me saying ‘keep working or you will never leave!’”

Mohammad, said, “The company has my passport. If my sponsorship status changes they will send me back and I have a lot of debt to pay… I want my passport back… [and] the camp is no good, there are eight of us in one room – it is too many. But I cannot complain [because] they will end my job.”

In football, the players are the game. This gives them inherent power that the authorities who run the game fear. Players taking the knee is a nice gesture of anti-racism, it really is nothing more than that. It takes a lot of performative and concocted anger to get upset about. However, it’s time footballers realise the power they have and use it to force major change in the game.

Taking the knee means little when the authorities running the game fail to adopt a zero-tolerance approach to racism and often trivialise the issue. It means even less if more isn’t done to oppose all forms of discrimination, including effective endorsement of racism, homophobia and modern day slavery when the football gravy train stops in Russia, Qatar and Lord knows where next.