Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ETHICAL?
FINAL REPORT
Written by:
B083022056 施平福
B084020051丁海倫
B084012043 康瑞芸
M104111024 林冠劭
M104111022 楊庭維
INTRODUCTION
Association Football Federation (FIFA). Was established in 1904 by seven nations: Belgium,
Denmark, France, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The initial purpose of FIFA
was to strengthen the friendship among National Associations as well as the officials and the
players by organizing football matches at all levels and regulating all kinds of football
associations. FIFA has been the coordinator of the most spectacular sporting event, the World
In this essay, we will use the Corporate’s Social Responsibility (CSR) framework to
evaluate if FIFA is being a responsible company. The United Nations Industrial Development
considerations into their business practices. It is also written in their website that CSR is a
way in which corporations can achieve social, environmental, and economic balance. The
integrate their interest for specific causes with a viable business strategy. From all the case
studies that we discussed in class, CSR programs varied from reducing carbon footprint to
giving free cars in return for unused days off. Therefore, the concept of CSR can be abstract
to a lot of people.
FIFA as an International sporting body, is facing increasing pressure from all of their
stakeholders. FIFA has been using their CSR programs to pursue their causes in sports,
especially in football. For instance, back in 2010 when South Africa hosted the World Cup
2010, FIFA focused on a lot of aspects that they can improve from the South African football
communities. One of the aspects that FIFA focused on is empowerment and diversity.
1
Empowerment promotes gender equality in sports, especially football. FIFA coordinated a
street football competition in South Africa in order to facilitate women's passion for football.
This is encouraging since it's rare to witness women playing football in South Africa. In
addition to their gender equality programs, FIFA is also trying to promote racial equality to
raise intercultural awareness in football. One of their projects, Football For Hope, is directed
for young people from 40 countries. It also has a cultural exchange program that promotes
multiculturalism and tolerance. They also held a football match without the referee therefore
players will have to solve conflicts through short dialogue. Although FIFA has made some
the objectivity and the future for all these programs (Woods and Strokes 2019).
Since Qatar is selected as the host of the 2022 World Cup, the integrity of FIFA is
questioned. However, the idea of Qatar hosting the World Cup in 2022, is bizarre for a lot of
people. The major issues that are concerning football enthusiasts have to do with Qatar’s
extreme weather, human rights conflicts, gender inequality, lack of football culture as well as
inadequate infrastructure that can facilitate this major event. FIFA also faced some
allegations of their involvement with the physical abuse and imprisonment of a whistleblower
who leaked the information regarding his concern for the working conditions in Qatar (Ingle
2022). FIFA’s credibility as an institution is questioned since they also have a long history
with bribery and corruption scandals. In 2015, government officials from the United States
and Swiss finally reacted to the allegations directed towards FIFA (Stromberg and Yglesias
2015).
CSR pyramid (1991). In a Journal written by Thacker in 2019, it is explained that the Carroll
(1991) CSR framework is a model that is commonly used to measure the impact and
2
The pyramid divides corporate responsibility into 4 different levels: economic responsibility,
responsibility means that companies have to be profitable in order to pay their workers and
do something good for the society. Legal responsibility represents companies’ duty to obey
the law, Thacker claimed that this is the most crucial responsibility in the pyramid. Ethical
responsibility is described as prioritizing integrity, doing the right thing and doing no harm.
responsibility that companies have to fulfill in order to balance out what they have taken from
the society. Philanthropic responsibility helps companies to hold onto their core values of
METHODOLOGY
approach, the other one is a quantitative approach. When we use quantitative approach, we
adopt the perspective of positivism, and we explore social phenomena by statistical analysis,
predict and control social phenomena. Quantitative researchers believe that social phenomena
objectivity. Qualitative is a commonly used research method in the field of social science and
education, usually relative to quantitative approach. Qualitative research actually does not
refer to a single method, but a general term for many different research methods. Since they
do not belong to the quantitative approach, they are classified into the same category. These
include but are not limited to ethnographic research, discursive analysis, interview research,
3
behavior and its reasons. Qualitative research methods investigate why and how human
decisions are made, not just what decisions people make and when and where they make
but more focused sample to generate information or knowledge about a particular case
studied.
quantitative approach because we are unable to give the questionnaire or survey to FIFA’s
general public in Taiwan, we think that they don’t really know what FIFA did to make Qatar
host the world cup, and we can only get useless data. With a view to getting the useful data,
We collected the data from the Internet, and we look for the websites not only to write
good news that is good for FIFA, but we also look for the websites that write news that is not
good for FIFA. We choose these two kinds of websites with an eye to getting the most
accurate information.
When FIFA announced in 2010 that Qatar would be the host country for the 2022
World Cup, the result aroused widespread discussion, because no one expected that a small
gulf country without football infrastructure would win the right to host the 2022 World Cup.
The closed and conservative culture and media censorship system have caused people from
all walks of life to question whether Qatar is suitable for hosting the World Cup and the
fairness of FIFA's voting. The FIFA Executive Committee is composed of more than a dozen
most powerful leaders in the football world. The right to host the World Cup is completely
decided by the Executive Committee by secret ballot. Therefore, as long as the bidding
4
country pleases these people, it will have a chance to win the right to host the World
In 2014, some media broke the news that Qatar won the right to host the World Cup
by bribing FIFA . The program "Selling the World Cup" was investigated secretly for a long
time by two journalists from The Sunday Times, risking their lives disguised as an
undercover agent, he exposed Qatar's bribery in order to fight for the right to host the World
Cup, and confirmed the crimes of FIFA accepting bribes. At the same time, the program
interviews people who witnessed the bribery process, uncovering the inside story of FIFA's
corruption, and the process of the FBI, the US Criminal Investigation Section, and the Swiss
police teaming up to wipe out FIFA's corrupt elements,Swiss law enforcement agencies took
action at the 5-star Baur au Lac Hotel, obtained room keys from the hotel, and arrested
several high-level FIFA executives. One of the arrested persons was arranged by the
authorities to leave at the side door of the hotel with luggage. The arrested persons involved
multiple Corruption charges, will be extradited to the United States for prosecution. Those
involved include two FIFA vice presidents. This is also the largest arrest action in the sports
world(Yahoo News, 2022 The reporter "hid his death in the bunker").
companies, and under the pretext of "wanting to fight for the right to host the United States”,
they visited members of the FIFA Executive Committee around the world to learn about the
way to win the right to host. The executive committee directly revealed in the sneak shot
video The sponsor's bidding price, payment method, payee, etc. everyone's tacit
understanding of the bribery culture is jaw-dropping. The program also interviewed witnesses
of these bribery processes, including the media commissioner of the 2022 Qatar World Cup,
Amakid. They followed the Qatar bid team to meet with the FIFA executive committee, and
5
witnessed the two sides discussing how much money they need to spend to get votes. Every
time Amakid witnesses a bribe, they will record it. After they decided to make an anonymous
accusation, they were threatened with threats to the safety of their children. The means of
FIFA and Qatar made her terrified. The new FIFA president Gianni Infantino vowed to
eradicate corruption and the enthusiasm of the fans has not been affected by a series of
scandals. Everything seems bright and beautiful, but it is still unknown whether corruption
can really be eradicated (OKAPI Read Life Log, 2018 "There are only two kinds of officials
in football, one is for taking bribes and the other is for giving bribes.").
The awarding of the 2022 FIFA World Cup to Qatar raised a number of concerns and
controversies regarding both Qatar’s suitability as a host country and the fairness of the FIFA
World Cup bidding process. Not only Qatar was suspected of bribing FIFA to host the 2022
World Cup, but they also have a record of human rights violations. Media outlets, sporting
experts, and human rights groups have criticized Qatar on their treatment of migrant workers,
One of the most controversial issues of the Qatar World Cup was the treatment of the
hired workers to build the stadiums. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) have widely condemned Qatar for the
deaths and abuses of the migrant workers who built the tournament. A major complaint of the
groups is the Kafala system, a holdover from British colonial rule, which gives employers
near total control over workers’ visas. According to the Council on Foreign Relations
website, It’s a unique restrictive immigration system that can take different forms in different
industries. It’s a system where an individual employer has to sponsor their worker which
gives them an inordinate amount of power over them. They can control when their employee
6
job ends or if they can change jobs. They can control if and when migrants leave the country,
often by confiscating their passports. They also can control the worker’s ability to renew their
residency and work permit. But beyond the restrictions on a migrant’s freedom of movement,
this system also traps them in a cycle of abuse and that became evident when Qatar started
Based on the journal that was written by Amnesty International, Qatar tapped into its
migrant pipeline and recruited hundreds of thousands of new workers in order to deliver on
the infrastructure that was promised to FIFA. Thousands of migrants turned into construction
workers to build gigantic stadiums which became the site for human rights abuses that ranged
from verbal abuse to death. Several investigations into Qatar’s stadiums revealed that
employers usually house workers in private camps far from city centers where they are forced
to live in overcrowded rooms and unsanitary conditions. They are often given the most
dangerous jobs on the site and can be forced to work up to 14 hours a day in Qatar’s extreme
heat. It was recorded that temperatures could rise up to 45° Celcius. It was also reported that
the workers are only permitted to have a five-minute break to eat and are not allowed to go to
the bathroom unless they want to have trouble with their boss. This resulted in them drinking
less water despite the need to have it in order to avoid heat exhaustion. The number of
work-related migrant deaths surrounding stadiums remain unclear due to Qatar’s lack of
transparency, which is also the case for the entire Kafala’s system. In addition to living and
working in abusive conditions, many are also not getting paid for their work. Even though
workers try to find complaints, they are only to find few effective mechanisms in place and if
they were found out they speak out, they will be at risk of retaliation and thus, migrant
workers are kept isolated in this Kafala system with increasing debt and unable to access
7
After years of mounting pressure from human rights organizations and a formal
complaint that reached the UN’s international Labor Organization, Qatar signed an agreement
in 2017 promising to align its laws and labor practices to international standards. In 2020, ten
years after construction for the World Cup began, Qatar implemented a minimum wage for
workers and now allows them to terminate their employment contract. Despite all of the
agreement to align the laws, this is all too late for the migrant workers. Civil right groups and
several football associations are calling a remedy fund to compensate the migrant workers
financially.
CONCLUSION
In accordance with the Carroll CSR framework, we examine the impact and
dedication of FIFA in terms of upholding accountability and acting responsibly. Start from
organization with enormous revenue potential that devotes the majority of its income to the
game's development. The Men's and Women's World Cups, which are held every four years,
are the most well-known international championships and provide the majority of these
revenues. One of the biggest sporting events in the world, the World Cup certainly generates
For the legal responsibility, FIFA is steadfastly devoted to the values of the rule of
law, good governance, and transparency in its role as the organization that governs world
football. But because of their corruption scandal, the transparency of FIFA has become
The next responsibility is the ethical responsibility. Integrity, acting morally, and
avoiding harm are prioritized as aspects of ethical responsibility. FIFA can be viewed as an
8
unethical organization, as evidenced by how FIFA corrupted the World Cup and also the 2022
FIFA World Cup Qatar human rights controversy. In essence, corruption is a bad thing that
build enormous stadiums, thousands of migrants became construction workers, and these
stadiums became the site of human rights violations ranging from verbal abuse to death. This
is regarded as another unethical behavior that FIFA engaged in. But, besides all of these
unethical practices that FIFA did, they also made an effort to develop and transform into a
more ethical organization. For instance, FIFA concentrated on diversity and empowerment
when South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup. Furthermore, FIFA has recently strengthened
its commitment to constructing a better future by developing a social responsibility plan and
The last responsibility from the Carroll CSR framework is the philanthropic
required by corporations and is a part of what the public expects on a daily basis. For more
than 20 years, FIFA has contributed to charitable donations and supported humanitarian
endeavors. FIFA is also engaged through practical programs and initiatives like "Say No to
Racism," "My Game is Fair Play," "Green Goal," and, most significantly, "Football for
In summary, FIFA has both positive and negative aspects, just like other organizations
in general. FIFA is still making an effort to learn from its mistakes and act in a more
responsible and ethical manner. However, in practice, FIFA continues to act unethically and
9
References
Amnesty International. 2022. Qatar: 'They think that we're machines': Forced labour and
other abuse of migrant workers in Qatar's private security sector. London, UK:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde22/5388/2022/en/.
Conti, Kristen. 2022. “History, rise in popularity and World Cup connection of FIFA.” NBC
Sports.
https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/all-about-fifa-history-rise-popularity-and-world-c
up-connection.
Fitzgerald, Madeline. 2022. “Qatar's World Cup Controversy, Explained | Best Countries |
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2022-11-22/qatars-world-cup-c
ontroversy-explained.
Ingle, Sean. 2022. “Qatar World Cup whistleblower was tortured, claims family.” The
Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/dec/07/qatar-world-cup-whistleblower-w
as-tortured-claim-human-rights-groups.
McPhillips, Tim. 2022. “The World Cup is officially underway in Qatar. Here's why it's so
controversial.” PBS.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/the-world-cup-is-officially-underway-in-qatar-h
eres-why-its-so-controversial.
Ramsay, George. 2022. “How Qatar ended up hosting the World Cup.” CNN.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/23/football/qatar-fifa-world-cup-explainer-spt-intl/ind
ex.html.
10
Reiff, Nathan, and Vikki Velasquez. n.d. “How FIFA Makes Money: Global Football and
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/070915/how-does-fifa-make-money.
asp.
Robinson, Kali, Diana Roy, Ryszard Cholewinski, and Hagit Ariav. n.d. “What Is the Kafala
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-kafala-system.
Stromberg, Joseph, and Matthew Yglesias. 2015. “FIFA's huge corruption and bribery
https://www.vox.com/2015/5/27/8665577/fifa-arrests-indictment.
Thacker, Hency. 2019. “Understanding the Four Levels of CSR.” The CSR Journal.
https://thecsrjournal.in/understanding-the-four-levels-of-csr/.
Ward, Ian. 2022. “All the 2022 Qatar FIFA World Cup controversies, explained.” Vox.
https://www.vox.com/world/23450515/world-cup-fifa-qatar-2022-controversy-scanda
ls-explained
https://www.unido.org/our-focus/advancing-economic-competitiveness/competitive-tr
ade-capacities-and-corporate-responsibility/corporate-social-responsibility-market-int
egration/what-csr.
Woods, Chelsea L., and Ashli Q. Strokes. 2019. ‘For the game, for the world’: An analysis of
OKAPI Read Life Log, 2018 "There are only two kinds of officials in football, one is for
taking bribes and the other is for giving bribes." "Red Card Leaving" traces the truth
11
Ontv, 2015 FIFA corruption case: several high-level FIFA officials were arrested for
corruption! https://reurl.cc/OE6AZR
Yahoo News, 2022 The reporter "hid his death in the bunker" secretly investigated for 3 and a
half years "Selling the World Cup" revealed that Qatar bribed to win the right to host
12