On Thursday afternoon, the national team departed from Polish capital Warsaw, where the day before they played a friendly against Chile, in the lead-up to the 2022 World Cup.
At 2.30 pm CET the plane with Poland’s 26-man squad took off from Warsaw’s Okęcie military airport and flew towards Qatar’s capital, Doha.
Through Polish territory up to the southern border with Slovakia, the team was escorted by two F-16 fighter jets, one of which had a white-and-red flag inside the cockpit.
Around 8 pm CET the plane landed in Doha, where Poland will play their first match against Mexico, followed by games against Saudi Arabia and Argentina as part of the world cup’s group stage.
World Cup controversy
The World Cup in Qatar has been mired in scandals; from discrimination against women and homosexuals, through FIFA corruption allegations, to paying off fake fans to parade for the cameras.
But the worst is seen in the exploitation of, mostly South Asian, migrant workers who built the infrastructure in Qatar ahead of the world cup.
According to a report by The Guardian, at least 6,500 foreign workers died as a result of slave-like working conditions, prompting a number of people to call for a boycott of the event.
Supporters of the German sides of Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich and Hertha BSC held up “Boycott Qatar 2022” banners during Bundesliga matches, while several French cities decided against setting up the customary fan parks for the tournament as part of their protest against human rights violations.
The Polish team has also been embroiled in controversy – head coach Czesław Michniewicz has been facing allegations of having been involved in Poland’s biggest match-fixing scandal in the early 2000s.
Michniewicz has been found to have spent 27 hours on the phone with a man branded as “the godfather of the football mafia”, later sentenced to 4.5 years in prison.
(pjm)
Source: Przegląd Sportowy