In the midst of a political scandal that is acquiring increasing importance on a global scale, since last Friday the European Parliament had to find itself faced with a situation that was difficult to imagine until just a few decades ago.

During the first moments of the media euphoria associated with the celebration of the Football Championship in Qatar, a vice president of the European Parliament, the Greek Social Democrat Eva Kailí , had to travel to Doha and, both during her stay in that city and on her return of her trip, she had no better idea than to praise the social and political virtues that she would have known in the Qatari kingdom.

On November 1, on Twitter, an official meeting was announced in Qatar between Ms. Kailí and Mr. Al- Marri, Minister of Labor of the government of that country. The tweet referring to the afore mentioned meeting expressed: «This official representative of the European Union congratulated Qatar on its commitment to maintain the continuity of the reforms in terms of working conditions, after the conclusion of the 2022 World Cup…»

Something did not go well in this management carried out by the vice president of the European Parliament in Qatar. Perhaps the parliamentarian was not aware that, for more than 4 months, the Central Office for the Repression of Corruption (OCRC), under the direction of the Investigating Judge in financial matters, Michel Claise, and coordinated by the Prosecutor’s Office Federal, was carrying out an in-depth investigation on the subject of the importance of corruption in various political sectors of the different authorities of the European government.

The truth is that on Friday, December 9 , the Brussels authorities decided to intervene. Given the nature of the position of the vice president and that of the charges of other suspects, a police intervention was necessary to configure the apprehension of those investigated in flagrante delicto so that those who were protected by special privileges could not escape the intervention of the police. Justice.

The vice president has already been removed from office and brought to justice for allegedly accepting bribes from Qatar. Also, four other people were arrested in almost simultaneous operations for belonging “…presumably to a criminal organization, money laundering and corruption.” Among them there is a former MEP.

All of them were placed under arrest warrant, as reported in the statement issued by the Belgian Prosecutor’s Office, according to the newspaper El País of Spain.

The arrests occurred on Friday, December 9 in Brussels, after at least 16 searches in the framework of an investigation into alleged «substantial» payments from a Gulf country to influence the decisions of MEPs, reported AFP . For his part, a Qatari government official told AFP that «any accusation of misconduct by the State of Qatar demonstrates serious misinformation”.  In the procedures carried out in the homes investigated for the arrest of the five people referred to, about 600,000 euros were found.

All the defendants are members of the social democratic group S&D. In addition to the vice president, the most prominent of the detainees is the former Italian MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri , who directed the association » Fight Impunity ” , theoretically dedicated to the fight against human rights violations. This association also seems to have been targeted by Belgian judicial investigations. Another of the defendants is a former assistant to Panzeri and today a partner of Eva Kaili, Francesco Giorgi, while the fourth would be a lobbyist from Brussels, named Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, the Brussels media outlet «Le Soir«.

All this is an open contradiction with the unifying and tolerant spirit that a soccer World Cup should signify. Qatar has imposed its culture on that of the rest of the world with the aquiescence of the same FIFA president, the Italian -Swiss Gianni Infantino, who in evident demagoguery has stated that «I feel Qatari, I feel Arab, I feel African, I feel gay, I feel disabled, I feel like an immigrant worker”, but the Qatari authorities do not even feel gay , nor have they opened legal processes to investigate the death of thousands of immigrant workers who perished building the stadiums where the most questioned soccer World Cup is played of the last times.

But with this recent » Qatargate » scandal, it seems that the political favors granted to Qatar are not simple matters of mere «favors», but rather respond to the transfer of juicy sums of money that constitute totally illegal practices, according to the minister. German Foreign Office, Annalena Baerbock , «…against which the full weight of the law must be applied…» , because «…the credibility of Europe is at stake, and this must have consequences in various areas» .

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyden declared: «…the suspicions of corruption in the European Parliament are very serious».

However, the president of the European Parliament, the Italian Roberta Metsola , stated at the beginning of a plenary session in Strasbourg that «…there is no doubt…», that the European Parliament is under attack. «European democracy is under attack and (its) model of an open, free and democratic society is under attack», and has made it clear that «…there will be no impunity…» against those responsible and that they are not going to «…sweep anything under the rug».

In its most strictly «ideal» sense but, at the same time, also hightly rhetorical, the exercise of sport as a competition between nations, was born in Ancient Greece, as a pause in hostilities based on the recognition that Humanity is only one, and may be momentarily united in her brotherhood. Henry Bill, in his “History of the Olympic Games”, stated that the Olympics “…were founded on a high religious and moral plane, rising to a prodigious height while remaining true to these basic and fundamental ideals, but (later) showing signs of decay under the influence of politics».

There have been many who criticized the choice of Qatar as the venue for the 2022 Soccer World Cup. It has always been suspected that this unsustainable choice responded to the desire to cleanse the image of that Muslim country from the constant international political accusations against its permanent, systematic and unjustifiable violations of human rights. The archaic autocracy that reigns in Qatar does not recognize rights and, therefore, freedoms. She explicitly denies most of the liberties that modern politics cultivates and promotes. It not only denies the freedom of the human being in general. Not to mention that the female condition is a variant of slavery. The control of women over their own bodies, the right to sexual freedom of individuals, the different versions of homosexuality and even the freedom to get drunk on the loose, are unknown processes there And, worse than all this, not accepting never be held accountable for thousands and thousands of immigrants killed due to unacceptable working conditions, preventable accidents at work and open exploitation of labor during the construction of the infrastructure for the sporting event that arouses the most passions around the world, is perhaps one of the stains that the organizers of this Soccer World Championship will never be able to get rid of.