Gareth Southgate is facing a continued backlash from campaigners after claiming migrant workers in Qatar are “united” in wanting the World Cup to go ahead.
The England manager said in an interview with CNN on Monday that workers in the Gulf state "wanted the football to come to Qatar" because they "love" the sport and “football is everything”.
But Amnesty International have described Southgate’s comments as “unhelpful” with less than three weeks to go before the tournament kicks off. Qatar has been fiercely criticised for its human rights record since being awarded the tournament in 2010 with an estimated 6,500 workers having died during the building of infrastructure - a figure that Qatari officials have denied.
“It is definitely unhelpful for someone with his position to be making remarks of this kind when we are so close to the start of the tournament,” Amnesty’s Felix Jakens told Mirror Football.
“Given the mass violations of the human rights of the workers who have delivered this World Cup we’d like to see Southgate raising those issues loudly and clearly; and in particular calling on FIFA and the Qatari authorities to deliver a compensation fund to offer some reparations to those who have died or been injured in delivering this tournament.
“We’d like to hope that Gareth Southgate would have taken on board the messages that Amnesty and our partners have been saying for years: that this World Cup has been plagued by mass human rights violations, and that many thousands of workers in the country continue to have their rights violated. That’s the continuing situation on the ground and we’d like to see him speak about that.”
Southgate, who said he will continue to support calls from campaign groups alongside the Football Association, said: "In the end, the football is everything. It's why we're there, it's what we're there to do.
"I've been out to Qatar several times and I've met with lots of the workers out there and they are united in certainly one thing, and that's that they want the tournament to happen. They want that because they love football. They want the football to come to Qatar. But we also need to be realistic about how much we're going to affect in a country that we don't control."
A report published on Tuesday by the United Nations-affiliated International Labour Organisation said that Qatar has shown “determination” when it comes to reforming its labour laws - but a lot of work remains.
The ILO claimed that 350,000 applications from workers to change jobs have been approved since new legislation was brought in two years ago, while 280,000 workers saw their salaries rise to the new minimum threshold of 1,000 riyals (£237) - a figure that has been criticised by campaign groups.
Amnesty recognises some improvements have been made but insist thousands of workers are still being denied wages or having them delayed, being denied rest days, being exposed to unsafe working conditions, facing barriers to changing jobs and in accessing justice.
Meanwhile, Qatar’s Labour Minister Ali bin Samikh Al Marri has accused the Gulf state's critics of "racism" and pushed back against proposals for a $440m compensation fund to be created for migrant workers.
Speaking to AFP, Marri said Qatar already has a fund to deal with worker deaths and injuries and described the compensation campaign as a “publicity stunt” while claiming that critics of the Gulf state’s human rights record were “racist”.
In response Amnesty have described the comments around compensation as “hugely disappointing.” In a statement, they added: “The vast majority of migrant workers who have now returned home to countries like Nepal or Bangladesh are unable to access Qatar’s current scheme.
“There will be no compensation for them to reclaim stolen wages or illegal recruitment fees, let alone provide much needed financial support for those families who have lost a loved one.”
