Piers Morgan Clashes With Bob Costas Over Qatar Hosting World Cup: Every Country, Including the US and UK, Has ‘Pretty Big Abuses’

Piers Morgan debated legendary sports broadcaster Bob Costas this week, defending FIFA’s decision to put the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Qatar has been facing heavy scrutiny over multiple issues before any games had even been played yet in the World Cup, from worker safety to restrictions and more.

More than 6,500 migrant workers were killed throughout the construction of the stadiums and hospitality areas for the tournament. Qatar’s human rights record was questioned because the government criminalized same-sex relationships.

Qatari officials stopped a Danish journalist after he tried to record a live report on camera and threatened to smash the camera. Qatari officials forced American journalist Grant Wahl to delete a picture from his phone of the World Cup slogan in the media center.

Costas appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored on Fox Nation, where the two discussed whether or not it was fair or even justifiable to have the World Cup take place in the controversial locale.

Costas explained there was a difference between countries with issues within their country that tried to correct them compared to countries that abused their citizens.

“Every nation has flaws and problems and issues and things that they need to correct,” Costas said. “And shame in their past, and maybe in some cases in an ongoing way. But then there are nations in the here, and now, we’re not talking about history, in the here and now that are fundamental human rights abusers.”

Costas referred to China, Russia, and Qatar as countries that had violated human rights. Russia invaded Ukraine in March of 2022, and President Vladimir Putin‘s treatment of the Russian people was called into question. China’s poor human rights record also questioned how President Xi Jinping treated the Chinese people.

“Qatar is one of those, China is certainly one of those, Putin’s Russia is one of those,” Costas added. “These athletes will never have a platform that will draw as many eyes and make as large of an impact as they do at an Olympics or at a World Cup.”

Costas found it comical that the Olympics’ governing body, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and soccer’s governing body, FIFA, have told players and countries to keep politics out of the games. The 2014 Winter Olympic games were held in Sochi, Russia, and the 2022 Winter Olympics were hosted in Beijing, China.

“It’s ironic that FIFA and the IOC say, ‘let’s keep politics out of this, please keep politics out of this,'” Costas continued. “But they’re the ones who put politics in it by placing these events in Qatar, and Sochi, and Beijing.”

Morgan argued that many countries in the Middle East had similar treatment of their people, so Qatar would not be the only country that could not host a World Cup.

“The Middle East has never had a World Cup,” Morgan said. “If the stink to beat the Middle East on human rights is ill-treatment of migrant workers and LGBT rights, for example, then you’re basically saying you can’t have a sports tournament in the Middle East at all.”

Morgan elaborated that many countries worldwide have a poor record with migrant workers and have laws that outlaw same-sex relationships. He pivoted and thought no country could host a World Cup or Olympic games because of the country’s past.

“Once you start putting the moral halo on about human rights, I’m not sure you can end up with many places in the world which are clean enough to actually host a World Cup,” Morgan added.

Morgan brought up how the next World Cup will be in the United States. He also added how heavily discussed issues in America, like gun control and how the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, could change people’s views about the United States.

“If you continue down the road of putting a halo on and deciding who is fit to host these things, I think you’ve got to be consistent and accept that every country, including America, including Britain, which helped America illegally invade Iraq, of course, in 2003, that we all have actually pretty big abuses. Which would be quite hard to defend.”

“There are matters of degree,” Costas answered.

Watch above via Piers Morgan Uncensored.