The Athletic.

Hello, I'm Mark Chapman.

Welcome to the Business of Sport podcast on The Athletic.

Matt Slater joins us from Doha, ahead of this Friday's World Cup draw,

ahead of the start of the tournament in November. And the theme of today's podcast will be the criticism over

the decision to stage the World Cup in Qatar because of concerns over the country's human

rights record. Later on in the pod, we'll hear the thoughts of FIFA President Gianni Infantino

on those concerns. We'll also get reaction from the organisation Human Rights Watch.

The England captain, Harry Kane, says he wants to shine a light on issues around Qatar,

but how effective is activism from players on off-field issues?

Jonas Bear Hoffman is General Secretary of Fief Pro, the Global Football Players Union, and joins us now from Doha.

So Jonas, first of all, what have you been doing?

Who have you been seeing and talking to in Doha?

Well, we've had today a conference together with the International Trade Union of construction workers,

who we've been partnering with for some years now to work on

the migrant workers, labor rights in the country, and of course the overall human rights situation.

So we've been attending some meetings here, and we've had meetings over the last few days

with some of the workers' representatives, the community leaders from the different international

workers communities. And yeah, we're trying to just amplify and support these efforts to keep

pushing forward. Work remains to be done in many parts of the country. Maybe the conditions have

improved over the last few years, especially when you look at the,

you know, the Supreme Committee managed construction sites off the stadia, the conditions there

...