Last month, the autocratic Gulf state of Qatar handed out anti-corruption awards in partnership with the United Nations. The entire exercise was gaslighting in the extreme.
It took chutzpah for the regime in Doha to issue one of five Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani Anti-Corruption Excellence awards for the "Safeguarding Sports from Corruption," named for the country's autocratic leader. The safeguard award was granted jointly this year to two experts in sports law. The legal experts may well have earned their recognition. But it is now well-documented that Qatar bribed its way to hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
In 2010, FIFA, international soccer's governing body, voted for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup. Qatar, a tiny desert country, possessed none of the infrastructure needed to host an international sporting event. And yet, somehow, Qatar beat out Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States to host the tournament. But not before the regime doled out nearly $1 billion in cash and contracts.
The U.S. Department of Justice acknowledged as much in a 2020 superseding indictment that FIFA executives "were offered and received bribe payments in exchange for their votes in favor of Qatar." One of the officials named in the indictment is the former president of South America's soccer confederation, Nicolás Leoz. Leoz reportedly sold his vote for some $8.5 million. He died in 2019 while under house arrest in Paraguay.
But the World Cup is just one example of Qatari corruption. The problem is far more pervasive. On December 9, 2022, Belgian police arrested European Parliament president Eva Kaili during a sweeping corruption investigation of politicians in Brussels. Her alleged offense mirrored that of Leoz: trading favors for Qatari cash.
Kaili has since become the female face of the scandal known as "Qatargate." This is a sprawling Qatari corruption scheme that targeted stakeholders across the European Union. Leaked documents reveal how Qatar bribed European officials, in one case paying off officials to change the "narrative in parliament" about Qatar's treatment of immigrant workers, who constitute as much as 90 percent of the emirate's population. Qatar had every reason to try and sweep this under the rug. In preparation for the World Cup, Doha exploited immigrant workers to build stadiums, hotels, and highways. One Nepali laborer recalled that "it was too hot," "difficult to breathe," and that "at some places, they didn't have water." The foreman would "threaten to reduce our salaries and overtime pay," he said.
While attending the World Cup, then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Robert Menendez told Qatar's state-run press that the emirate had "come a long way in the development of labor rights, and it took care of the people inside it." That statement may well have been bought and paid for by the regime in Doha. Menendez resigned from the Senate in August after a jury found him guilty of accepting bribes and using his "influence and power" to "benefit the Government of Qatar" and to "assist" a real estate developer from his home state of New Jersey in securing a multimillion-dollar Qatari investment deal.
The latest official to face consequences for allegedly accepting bribes from Qatar is Henrik Hololei, the ex-director-general of the European Commission's Mobility and Transport Department. European prosecutors opened an investigation last month, alleging that Hololei accepted tens of thousands of euros in gifts from Qatar, including complimentary business-class flights and luxury shopping sprees, while his department was negotiating an open-skies agreement between Qatar and the EU.
Qatar doesn't seem particularly ashamed by any of this. The diminutive but insanely wealthy Gulf nation somehow ranks among the 191 countries party to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). And if that's not Orwellian enough, in December 2025, Qatar will host the biennial Conference of State Parties (CoSP) to UNCAC.
CoSP is UNCAC's "main decision-making body," responsible for "supporting parties and signatories in their implementation of the Convention" and "providing policy guidance" to the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime. Incidentally, the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime was among the more than 50 governments and international bodies represented at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation's anti-corruption law enforcement summit, which Qatar hosted in late November.
Qatar has no business providing anyone with guidance on anti-corruption policy.
Glamorous awards and high-profile conferences are not enough to absolve Qatar of its sins.
Jonathan Schanzer is the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Natalie Ecanow is a research analyst focusing on the Middle East. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.