Liverpool have supported calls by human rights groups for thorough investigations into the deaths of migrant workers in Qatar, before the club flies to the Gulf country next week to play in Fifa’s Club World Cup. The Liverpool chief executive, Peter Moore, has also sought assurances from the Qatar “supreme committee”, which is organising the tournament and the 2022 World Cup, about the progress of investigations into the deaths of two men who had been working on the construction of football stadiums. Moore set out Liverpool’s position in a letter to Nicholas McGeehan and James Lynch, directors of the Fair/Square human rights organisation, who asked him in November to make a public statement of concern about workers’ rights and deaths in Qatar. McGeehan, formerly Gulf researcher at Human Rights Watch, and Lynch, previously a deputy director at Amnesty, have called for full investigations into the deaths in Qatar and the effects of heat. They cited the climate data and conclusions of medical experts, reported by the Guardian in October, that hundreds of migrant workers are dying in Qatar every year due to heat stress.

Source: The Irish Times December 10, 2019 22:30 UTC