As someone who has played soccer since he was 5 years old (and is currently 23), it used to make me a bit uneasy when I heard people criticize something I hold as dear as the World Cup. When I first began to hear criticism about the World Cup, which is to be held in Brazil in 2014, and about all the protests going on there, I didn't know how to feel.
Since then I have done some research and looked more into the political and business side of FIFA, and also learned about some of the horrendous conditions migrant workers from Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Africa and the Philippines are forced to toil in to prepare for the FIFA World Cup of 2022 to be held in Qatar. Workers labor in 50 degrees C (122 degrees Fahrenheit) heat, work twelve to thirteen hour work days without overtime pay, live in cramped and unsanitary living quarters, and are held against their will.
I didn't know how to feel before, but now I know exactly how I feel. Neither the President of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, nor Qatar want to accept responsibility for their actions. This is literally modern-day slavery. Migrants and employers are bound by the kafala system – taken from Islamic law on the adoption of children. 'Kafala' derives from 'to feed'," says Nick Cohen, writer for The Guardian. "The kafala system (sponsorship system) is a system used to monitor the construction and domestic migrant laborers in the Arab States of the Persian Gulf. The system requires all unskilled laborers to have an in-country sponsor, usually their employer, who is responsible for their visa and legal status," according to Wikipedia. Laborers are terribly exploited, without pay, indebted, stripped of a visa, stripped of legal representation, forced to endure racism and classism, malnourished and more. They eventually die, unsurprisingly, without anyone blinking an eye.
"The annual death toll among those working on building sites could rise to 600 a year – almost a dozen a week – unless the Doha government makes urgent reforms," according to another article from Guardian by Robert Booth, Construction for the World Cup could cost 4,000 lives at this rate--more people than will be competing in the World Cup.
Qatar is one of the richest nations on Earth and the fact that they can't treat their workers with the proper respect and dignity that they deserve is a microcosmic example of how capitalism operates on a global scale. In Qatar, migrants make up 99% of the private sector workforce, accounting for most of the labor. In a just society the people who make up 99% of the work force should reap a much larger reward. We know that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting more and more poor. We have much larger numbers. So why don't we organize and change things? Workers and students alike need to organize to prevent corporations and businesses from continuing to exploit us.
We have the power to cause change. Under a true Communist society no one would get more than their share. There would be no bosses, no corporations and no one to exploit workers into indentured servitude.
I still love soccer and admire the hard work and dedication that it takes to play the beautiful game but I cannot support the exploitation and corruption on the business side of it. It's too horrendous.

--Red Soccer Player