Roy Keane slams World Cup 2022 hosts Qatar in powerful speech during ITV coverage

Alex Young @alexwsyoung22 November 2022

Roy Keane has made his feelings clear on Qatar hosting the World Cup, repeatedly insisting on ITV's coverage that "it shouldn't be here".

The former Ireland international was speaking ahead of Argentina vs Saudi Arabia on day three in the Gulf state, which has come under increased scrutiny since being awarded the tournament in controversial circumstances, with focus on its treatment of women, members of the LGBTQ+ community and migrant workers.

Keane said the human rights issues have not been tackled, coming in the wake of the English and Welsh FAs fearing Harry Kane and Gareth Bale could be booked for wearing the rainbow-coloured One Love armband, because it is not a FIFA-approved piece of kit.

"The World Cup shouldn't be here, it shouldn't be here," he said while working as a pundit on ITV’s coverage. "It has been mentioned with corruption regarding FIFA. The country, the way they treat migrant workers, gay people.

"It is great that it has been brought up. They shouldn't have the World Cup here, you can't treat people like that.

"We all love football and we're on about spreading the game but to dismiss human rights flippantly because of a football tournament is not right. It shouldn't be here.

"The bottom line is, we are talking about common decency, how you treat people. Football, the greatest sport in the world, there is so much money involved, there will be corruption but let's get back to basics, you have to treat people with decency. It should start and finish with that."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in