England captain Harry Kane has called for a “unified approach” from national teams to highlighting the human rights concerns around the Qatar World Cup.
Kane says he will speak to senior international players, including the other national-team captains at Tottenham, France’s Hugo Lloris and South Korea’s Heung-min Son, as well as former teammates, Wales skipper Gareth Bale and Christian Eriksen, a senior Denmark player.
Concerns around human rights, particularly involving conditions for migrant workers and the status of LGBTQ+ indivdiausl and women have plagued the Gulf state since it was controversially awarded the finals in 2010.
England manager Gareth Southgate led a 30-minute meeting of his players and staff on Tuesday night where the situation was discussed, and Kane says he will speak to senior starts from other countries about coming together to make a stand.
“The meeting last night was the first time we’ve spoke about it,” he said. “I think over this camp and the next camp, we’ll talk about what we can do. Obviously there’s a couple of other national captains at Tottenham, maybe myself talking to other national team captains to see if we can be unified in how we approach it. That’s something that myself and other senior players in the team will try to achieve in the coming months.
“It’s definitely a conversation that I think we should have. I feel that definitely, when you’re together as nations, and you have that unity, and you have that nucleus of captains or countries that are all striving towards the same thing, it definitely sends a bigger message.
“It’s something I’ll try and do, and like I say, we have some big leaders in the Tottenham team, for the national sides, I know good friends around, like Gareth and Christian.
“I guess my responsibility will be to talk to them, and try to show awareness all together. I think that will show a bigger and more powerful message.”
Kane admitted to having “conflicting emotions” about next winter’s tournament, with excitement over playing in the World Cup tempered by concern about the ongoing issues in Qatar, and he declined to say whether it was “right” that FIFA had named the Middle Eastern country as hosts.
“It’s important to understand that first and foremost, as players we didn’t chose where this World Cup was going to be,” he said.
“It’s shone a light on important issues that might not have come to light if this World Cup wasn’t there. We have to try to help as much as possible to understand the issues and situations.
“We’re no experts in that field at the moment, in terms of what we know. As always we’ll try to help in any way we can, use our platform to help in any way we can. I understand there’s been some progress on certain issues in the country so far. My hope is having the World Cup there, having a light on these issues will help progress some of these issues which have been going on for a long time.
“It’s part of the responsibility of being a captain, whether we like it or not, there’s going to be questions asked, questions about what we’re doing about it,” he added.
“As a leader, not just in this team but in my club team as well, it’s important to talk about these things and not hide away from it. And I know, for sure, the other lads will be happy to be talking about it as well. They’ll be trying to do everything that I’m trying to do. Let’s see what happens. We’ll talk about it over the next few weeks and months. Hopefully we can make a real impact.”
