The growing calls for a boycott of the Qatar World Cup

In December, Danish caretaker Casper Fischer did something he had never done before. The 32 year old decided to petition Denmark’s parliament – the Folketing – to get the country’s national football team to boycott the World Cup finals being held in Qatar next year. Together with five co-sponsors, Mr Fischer, who lives close to Copenhagen, said Denmark should forsake playing in the tournament in protest at the poor human rights’ conditions in the Gulf host nation, as well as Fifa corruption. “We do not believe that we, as a democratic nation striving to live up to global human rights, can benefit from having some of the country’s most prominent sporting players participate in the finals and blue-stamp a dictatorship like Qatar,” states the petition.