QATAR’S use of football to “sportswash” the country’s appalling human rights record is part of a “broader truth” which also sees Israel using sport to camouflage its crimes against Palestine, campaigners said today.

The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said that the infrastructure for the upcoming football World Cup in Qatar has been built by “hyper-exploited” migrant workers subject to brutality and shocking conditions.

“In just a few weeks, the Fifa World Cup kicks off in Qatar,” the group said in a statement.

“Behind the polished image that Fifa, corporate sponsors, and the Qatari government will present, the World Cup has been built on the back of hyper-exploited migrant labour.

“The infrastructure that the tournament will rely on has been built by migrant workers exposed to forced labour, unpaid wages and brutal working conditions.”

The group said that “sportswashing” is not just used by repressive states to obscure their abuses of migrant workers’ rights.

“The World Cup is symptomatic of a broader truth,” it said.

“Human rights-abusing states use major sporting events to refashion their image.

“Israel, for example, uses sporting events to falsely depict itself as a modern, sports values-respecting democratic state — attempting to obscure its regime of settler-colonialism, military occupation, and apartheid against Palestinians.”

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, supported by PSC, will stage a webinar “Camouflaging Injustice: Using Sport to Hide Oppression” on the issue at 6pm on October 14.

Speakers include academics, sports journalists and Aya Khattab, a Palestinian footballer who plays for the Palestine women’s national team.

To register, visit the PSC website.