Brussels bar owner won’t air the World Cup, even though it doubles his profits 

Usually, during the World Cup, it’s a non-stop party at the Café Maison du Peuple in Brussels.

“It’s crazy. It’s dancing. It’s cheering. It’s pouring beers everywhere. People are united behind their nation,” the bar’s co-owner, Thomas Kok, told As It Happens host Nil Köksol. 

But this year, things are going to be different. Kok and his partners have decided not to broadcast a single game of the global soccer tournament.

“For the last 15 years, we’ve been broadcasting every single European Cup and every World Cup. But today the cup is full, if I may say,” Kok said. “We believe that it’s impossible to sell beer around that cynical circus.”

Kok and his business partners have joined a growing boycott of the tournament over the treatment of migrant workers and LGBTQ people in the host country of Qatar, as well as concerns over how the event will contribute to climate change.

In fact, the 2022 World Cup won’t be airing at any of the four bars Kok co-owns in Brussels. It’s a decision that comes at a cost. Kok says he often sees his profits double during the event. 

“We’re not here to judge anyone, but we are in the luxury position of being able to skip it,” he said. “It was a difficult decision, financially speaking, but we just couldn’t feel that it was possible to party around this event.”

Instead, this year, he plans to fill those gaps with musical performances, DJ sets and educational events. 

Migrant workers 

Kok says he’s boycotting the “slavery-like” conditions for those who are making the games possible. 

There are more than two million migrant workers in Qatar, and hundreds of thousands of them have been involved in preparing for next month’s World Cup, according to Amnesty International. 

Many workers have faced abuse, unpaid wages, unsafe working conditions and brutal hours, according to the human rights group. Thousands of migrant workers have died in the country, Amnesty says, and their deaths remain uninvestigated.

“Qatar’s overhaul of its labour system since 2017 has led to some noticeable improvements,” the organization said in its latest pre-tournament briefing. “However, a lack of effective implementation and enforcement continues to undermine their impact on migrant workers.”

Some workers who protested their conditions this summer were arrested, according to the advocacy group Equidem.

Amnesty is calling on the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and its members to contribute $440 million US — a total matching the World Cup prize money — to compensate workers who suffered human rights abuses while working on World Cup related projects in the years leading up to the tournament.

So far, Soccer Canada has not responded to the call, a fact that Ketty Nivyabandi, Amnesty International Canada’s secretary general, called “highly disappointing.”

LGBTQ rights

Another factor in the bar boycott is Qatar’s treatment of LGBTQ people.

Homosexual relationships between men are illegal in the country, punishable by jail time, or even death — though there is no evidence capital punishment has ever been used in such a charge, according to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association.

In a report issued earlier this week, Human Rights Watch accused Qatari security forces of unjustly detaining and abusing LGBTQ people, and forcing transgender women to undergo conversion therapy as a condition of their release. 

“While Qatar prepares to host the World Cup, security forces are detaining and abusing LGBT people simply for who they are, apparently confident that the security force abuses will go unreported and unchecked,” Rasha Younes, LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a press release.

“Qatari authorities need to end impunity for violence against LGBT people. The world is watching.”

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British LGBTQ activist Peter Tatchell said this week that he was detained while protesting those alleged abuses outside Qatar’s National Museum. 

The Qatari government denied Tatchell’s allegations, saying security “cordially and professionally” asked him to move, and that “rumours” that he was arrested were “completely false and without merit.”

Climate costs 

Finally, Kok says he can’t support what he suspects will be an exorbitant climate and energy cost.

“Look at the absurdity of literally cooling stadiums in the desert,” Tok said. “Europe is very, extremely [hard hit] by the energy crisis.”

The World Cup’s organizers, meanwhile, have maintained the tournament will be “carbon neutral.”

Tok says about 90 per cent of his customers have been supportive of the decision, which has been “very heartwarming.”

“There’s 10 per cent being extremely angry about it because they cannot watch their favourite games in their favourite bars,” he said. “And we understand them.”

In fact, he says he doesn’t begrudge anyone who watches the games or hosts events, and he empathizes with those who feel conflicted about how to proceed. 

“Of course, I’m conflicted, too. I love soccer. It ruins my heart not to watch any games,” he said.

“We do not judge anyone. I think the main thing I would say to those people and to myself is just to take this opportunity to learn about what is behind the curtain, to get informed.”