Boris Johnson invites Qatar World Cup committee to invest in London

-Mayor of London praises 2022 match plans and shows Qatari officers bear in mind redeveloping around Tottenham Hotspur floor

Qatar’s World Cup establishing committee, accused of failing to make sure overseas people have rights in its creation schemes for the match, has been invited through Boris Johnson to put money into regeneration plans in London.

Letters launched beneath neath the Freedom of Information Act display the mayor of London heaped reward on 2022 World Cup plans and counseled that Qatari officers ought to bear in mind redeveloping the region around Tottenham Hotspur’s floor withinside the north of the metropolis.

The request become made in February to Hassan al-Thawadi, the top of the Qatar legacy committee and the previous leader government of the emirate’s hit World Cup bid. The committee says that Qatar has now no longer turned out to be worried about in Tottenham.

But Johnson’s invitation has angered MPs and campaigners who’ve accused the Qatari authorities of the large-scale exploitation of people because it tries to construct stadia in time for the 2022 match. Qatar become a wonder winner to keep worldwide football’s maximum prestigious cup.

Steve Murphy, the overall secretary of the development people’ union UCATT, stated that he become disgusted by Johnson’s try and contain the Qataris.

“I discover it obscene the manner the mayor of London is touting massive swaths of London land to the Qatari nation even as turning a blind eye to the human rights abuses being perpetuated in opposition to migrant people in Qatar,” he stated.

Diane Abbott, the MP status for Labour’s London mayor nomination, stated: “Boris appears satisfied to provide Tottenham as a likely funding possibility however ignores Qatar’s remedy of overseas people and the dodgy World Cup bid. It confirms that at the back of the bonhomie and the blond mop is an amoral politician.”

Johnson’s letter become despatched in February following an assembly in vital London among the mayor and senior participants of Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy.

In the letter addressed to Thawadi, Johnson praises Qatar’s plans for the World Cup, writing: “I haven’t any doubt that Qatar will be placed on an excellent Fifa World Cup in 2022.”

Johnson is going directly to factor out that Arsenal’s stadium in Highbury, north London, has become one of every of London’s hit redevelopments.

“The Emirates stadium is one of numerous hit examples of regeneration initiatives in London. As the shipping and wider infrastructure improvements throughout the capital, for instance in Tottenham and the Lea Valley, different comparable funding possibilities are getting extra visible.

“Should you want an additional dialogue my crew might welcome the risk of talking with viable companions to bear in mind alternatives at unique web websites.

“I would like to indicate that Neale Coleman, my adviser on Tottenham and deputy chair of the London Legacy Development Corporation, is your factor of touch for statistics approximately London 2012 and possibilities in Tottenham.”

A week later, Thawadi responded: “As consistent with my preceding letter, Mr. Ahmad Nimeh, senior adviser for enterprise improvement can be the focus of touch and he will be contacting Mr. Coleman to comply with up on sure subjects that had been mentioned at some point of our assembly.”

The choice to award Qatar the 2022 match in December 2010 become highly debatable, prompting an avalanche of allegations approximately the manner in which it received the bid and issues approximately the searing warmth wherein it’d be performed and the remedy of migrant people constructing the infrastructure underpinning it.

In November, Qatar become cleared to host the match after Fifa’s ethics committee dominated any breaches of the policies that had been simplest of “very restrained scope” and closed its research into the debatable bidding process.

A file launched final month through Amnesty International stated the country’s government isis critically lagging behind efforts to cope with the rampant abuse of migrant people’s rights.

A collection of testimonies withinside the Guardian have proven that migrant people from Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, and someplace else had been the demise of their hundreds. While a few had been indexed as having been killed in place of work accidents, many extra had been stated to have died because of sudden, unexplained cardiac arrest.

Spurs’ plan to increase a brand new 56,000-ability stadium after White Hart Lane through 2017 consists of a scheme withinside the surrounding region to construct 2 hundred homes, a grocery store, and a public rectangular for network occasions inclusive of ice skating or road markets. The membership’s chairman, Daniel Levy, stated in 2011 that he required non-public finance to make it happen.

The Qatar Foundation has subsidized Barcelona’s shirts however the buying of the Paris St-Germain method it can now no longer be allowed to shop for extra than 25% of every other member in European competition, in line with Uefa regulations.

A spokesperson for Johnson stated that remote places funding contributes billions of kilos to the London financial system and creates heaps of latest jobs and that the mayor’s crew works tough to put London because of the metropolis of desire for worldwide investors.

“The mayor and his crew keep selling possibilities to put money into main London regeneration initiatives, which includes the ones in Tottenham, to remote places investors, which includes from Qatar,” he stated.

A spokesman for Tottenham Hotspur stated the plans are going in advance however the membership isn’t always in discussions with Qatari officers.

A spokeswoman for the Qatar World Cup committee stated: “The Supreme Committee holds itself and its contractors chargeable for making sure that the best requirements of fitness and protection are upheld on Supreme Committee creation web sites and in employee accommodation. There had been no fatalities on any Supreme Committee project, which includes proposed FIFA World Cup stadia.”