display

National player Toni Kroos has criticized the award of the World Cup to Qatar with unprecedented clarity and initiated protest actions during the 2022 tournament.

A boycott of the finals in the emirate on the Gulf will probably not solve problems such as poor working conditions and homophobia, said the Real Madrid midfield star.

"I rather think that it is important to draw extreme attention to the problems again, maybe in advance or during such a tournament, so that something can improve," said Kroos in the latest edition of the joint Podcasts “Einfach mal Luppen” with his brother Felix.

Toni Kroos is missing from the German national team in these World Cup qualifying rounds due to adductor problems

Source: pa / dfb / adidas

Toni Kroos described the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar in 2010 as a fundamental mistake.

"I think it's wrong that this tournament was given up," said the 31-year-old.

In a monologue lasting several minutes, Kroos listed what he saw as the terrible working conditions not only at World Cup stadiums and spoke of "that many workers from Qatar but also guest workers from other countries simply have to work nonstop, sometimes in 50 degrees heat" .

They would “simply suffer from a lack of nutrition, a lack of drinking water, which is insane, especially with the temperatures”, added Kroos and complained about a “certain violence” that “is carried out on the workers”.

More than 6,500 stadium construction workers died

display

Most recently, the German national football players, like their colleagues from Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium, had protested on Tuesday evening at their World Cup qualifiers to demand compliance with human rights and thus also criticized the conditions in Qatar.

Kroos is currently missing from the DFB team due to an injury.

According to research by the Guardian, more than 6500 workers from five Asian countries have died in the rich emirate in the past ten years.

Qatar's government said that reforms in recent years have significantly improved the situation of workers.

The world football association Fifa also regularly points out improvements for the workers.