Ex-England and Manchester United footballer Gary Neville is facing criticism for accepting a job with Qatari-owned broadcaster BeIN Sports to be a pundit during the 2022 World Cup.
Neville’s response to the Daily Mail has been to defend Qatar’s human rights record, despite homosexuality remaining illegal in the Middle Eastern country.
“Qatar have had Amnesty International and the International Labour Organisation all over them for the last 10 years because of the World Cup. Saudi Arabia have come into our country to own Newcastle and they’ve got terrible human rights issues over there and people work for them in this country. We either decide that we collaborate with these countries, and try and impact change through football, which is what I think we should always do, or we say we’re never going to let them play sport, we’re never going to have a World Cup there, we’re never going to allow them to compete against us because they don’t have what would be as progressive rights as they should have.”
