The World Cup is scheduled to be held in the oil-rich Middle East nation of Qatar in 2022. South Africa hosted the 2010 tournament amidst serious issues in building stadiums and preparing the national infrastructure for the gravity of the event, and since then, nations have been under a microscope in the years leading up to the event, much like Brazil is now.
Qatar has come under fire for human rights violations, allegations of bribery/political corruption, and the deaths of thousands of workers, and the country needs to make good impressions on the rest of the world if this international event is to run smoothly.
To accomplish this, the Qatar 2022 World Cup Committee gave ESPN soccer columnist Phil Ball an all-expenses-paid trip to a conference in a hotel in Doha, the nation's capital, and he wrote a glowing referendum on the nation's preparedness for the event in return, despite fairly obvious evidence that they aren't ready.
The question is - is this a conflict of interest? ESPN removed the article - did they need to do it?
ESPN did have to take this story down, because it contains a conflict of interest if there ever was one. The columnist clearly could be influenced by external forces while writing his piece, and could have his opinion on the future success of a Qatari World Cup shifted. And with a great deal of the criticisms focusing on issues like workers' safety and corruption, it looks even worse when he was not exposed to any of them in his "all-expenses paid" trip.
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