09x30 - 2022 FIFA World Cup controversies

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LAST WEEK TONIGHT
WITH JOHN OLIVER

Welcome to "Last Week Tonight!"

I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us.

It has been a busy week,
from Tr*mp announcing plans

to ruin your Thanksgiving
at least one more time,

to Nancy Pelosi announcing

that she'll step down
from her leadership role in the House,

to Paris
revealing its Olympic mascots,

which look less like they're
advertising a worldwide sporting event

and more like a gynecologist
spent too much on marketing.

But we're gonna start
with the ongoing chaos at Twitter.

It has now been three weeks since
it was taken over by Elon Musk,

a man who answers the question,

"What if Willy Wonka
benefitted from apartheid?"

And it is worth going back
to the very start of his takeover,

because from day one,
it was a total mess.

Elon Musk posted this video
of him arriving at Twitter's HQ.

"Let that sink in," he told us.

Two days later, he announced,
"Comedy is now legal on Twitter".

Okay, then.
Although, if comedy is now legal,

we probably need to reconvene
the Comedy Supreme Court

to set a precedent about that particular
violation of comedy law right there.

But many of the worst people on
Twitter seemed to take Elon's arrival

as a sign that the brakes
were now off,

with one analysis finding
the use of a racial slur

spiking nearly 500% in the 12 hours
after his deal was finalized.

Which is pretty shocking,
even for a website

where a regular trending topic
is sometimes just "the Jews".

That happens constantly.
You'll log in and see 30,000 people

Tweeting about "the Jews"
on a Tuesday afternoon,

and you do not
want to click to find out why.

Now, Elon initially tried
to set expectations low, Tweeting,

"Please note that Twitter will do lots
of dumb things in coming months",

something that he then
elaborated on like this.

Obviously, the intent
is not to do dumb things.

We're not aspirationally dumb.
We're aspirationally, not dumb.

Okay, but if you have to say

"we're not dumb" in three slightly
different ways in a row,

that doesn't really
inspire confidence.

It's like someone going, "I'm sober.
I'm not drunk. I'm good to drive."

By the end
of those three statements,

I'm not handing you
the keys to anything.

Twitter has always been a place where
you should be "aspirationally dumb".

Honestly, if it ends up becoming
somewhere that you can't Tweet

"The Babadook throat
game probably crazy"

and get a quarter million likes,

I don't want anything to do
with it anymore.

But whether aspirational
or inadvertent,

Musk has indeed
done some very dumb things.

Last week,
a new program went live

where the site charged $8 a month
for blue checkmarks,

a feature that used to verify
whether notable people or companies

were actually
who they said they were.

So, for instance, when Amtrak
posted the actual Tweet, "trains",

you knew an expert
was weighing in.

And selling that verification
for $8 had predictable results.

I want to show you a few of the fake
accounts that have popped up.

A fake account for Nintendo,
the video game company,

showed Mario there,
their iconic figure,

giving the finger.

We have blurred it
because it's offensive, I guess.

Yeah, I guess it is!
Mario giving the finger?

Apparently unacceptable.
But, 500% increase in racism?

"A-what-a-ya gonna do-a?"

That doesn't count, by the way.
That one's allowed. I checked.

But it wasn't just Nintendo.

A fake verified Pepsi account Tweeted,
"Coke is better",

a fake American Girl account Tweeted,
"Felicity owned slaves",

which kind of makes you wonder

what "Felicity Discovers a Secret"
was really about.

And a fake verified
Tesla account Tweeted,

"We will be offering 10 000 vehicles
to support the Ukrainian m*llitary.

Our cars are the most advanced
expl*sive devices on the market."

So, clearly, things are changing
on Twitter right now.

The site no longer seems to be adding
explanations to trending topics,

a feature that helped add greater
context and combated misinformation.

Which is why "RIPJimmyFallon" trended
on Tuesday with no further information,

prompting Fallon himself to post,
"Elon, can you fix this?"

to which Musk responded,
"Fix what?"

which, yeah, stopped clock twice a day,
is a very funny response.

But all of this is taking a real toll.

Major advertisers have paused
or pulled their advertising revenue,

including "General Mills, GM,
United Airlines, and Pfizer".

Which is probably
a smart move for them,

considering we're about 5 seconds away
from a fake Pfizer account Tweeting,

"The rumors are true,
we chipped ya, baby!"

or a fake General Mills account
Tweeting out,

"Cheerios are just cock rings
for mice!"

As for working inside Twitter,
that sounds like an absolute nightmare.

Musk has gotten
rid of more than half the staff,

at times seemingly targeting
any workers who'd criticized him.

And at one point,

"engineers were asked to print out
their recent code contributions",

so that they could be evaluated.

Which is not only not how
you traditionally evaluate code,

it's also a security risk,

which is presumably why engineers
were then quickly told

to shred their print-outs.

And while some argue
there's a method to this madness,

others aren't so sure.

You don't fire half the people
that work in a company unless,

you know, you have a plan, Ben.

I think.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

This guy signed some paperwork
eight months ago

that, it became very clear
he didn't really want to sign.

And then later on spent
seven months trying to renege on it.

If he has a plan I would like to see it,
as it is not a publicly available one.

Right. It sure seems like Elon Musk
doesn't have a plan.

He even seems to be
crowdsourcing advice,

with desperate Tweets like,
"What should Twitter do next?"

That is, when he's not spending
his time sharing memes

like this picture
of a rock with the text,

"Was magma before it was cool",
which he captioned, "This rocks".

This is what he spent
$44 billion to do.

To Tweet this rock joke.

I think we might actually need
to make comedy illegal again.

And the mass departures at Twitter
could cause him real problems,

not only have multiple labor
lawsuits already been filed,

Twitter's also been operating
under consent decree from the FTC,

requiring special oversight
after allegations of user data misuse,

but several key people responsible
for that oversight are now gone.

While Elon's online persona throughout
all of this has been the "fun troll",

during an appearance
at a conference on Monday,

you got the sense that the fun
may have worn off for him.

I'm really working the absolute
most amount that I can work,

from morning 'til night,
seven days a week.

So, this is not something
I'd recommend, frankly.

Yeah.

I don't know what else to say.

Holy sh*t.

That man is, in every possible sense,
in a very dark place.

The entire vibe of that video
is "Wizard of Oz su1c1de note".

And look, who knows
what's going to happen from here.

Elon certainly doesn't seem to.

He's decimated his staff
and degraded his product.

And sure, he could try
and sell what's left of Twitter.

Or it could continue
functioning worse than before

as his free-for-all digital
clown town.

But while the potential collapse
of this site has been sad

for the workers
and for those who have relied on it,

there is undeniably
something a little satisfying

about a guy who was so desperate
to be perceived

as cool and funny on the internet

that he paid $44 billion
to make it happen,

only to discover that he still
somehow couldn't afford it.

Let that one sink in.

And now, this!

And Now:

People on TV Have Some Thoughts
on Thanksgiving Foods.

All the sides. Everything else
involved in Thanksgiving.

The football, the friends, the family,
and everything. Turkey? Nah.

No. I love all the other leftovers.
Just not the turkey.

It just smells really bad to me.

Turkey tastes like dirt.
Ham tastes like salted dirt.

- I don't like sweet potatoes.
- How dare you?

That's a strange thing.

Green bean casserole.

I've heard recently
that's a white people thing.

I was gonna say that,
but I didn't want to be offensive.

I'm a green bean
casserole type myself.

Nobody eats all the green bean
casserole when I make it.

I don't like the green beans.

The only thing my kid will eat
is the biscuits.

- He hates Thanksgiving food.
- Weird.

What is going on at your house?

I try. I make really good
green bean casserole, too.

Apparently not.

Moving on. Our main story tonight
concerns the World Cup.

It's like the Super Bowl, except
the rest of the world gives a f*ck.

The World Cup is a big deal,

a country even qualifying for it
is a cause for huge celebration.

Just watch this Australian reporter
lose his mind

when his nation b*at Peru on penalties
to make it to the tournament.

We're through!
We're through! Yeah!

How good is this?

God! How good is this? Yes!

How are you feeling?
What are you feeling?

He's got my scarf!
He got me scarf! That's me mum's!

There is nothing
not to love about that,

from that reporter
holding out his microphone,

to amplify people's joy-shrieking,

to the guy kissing the camera,
to someone stealing his scarf,

which, sadly, he never got back.

And the reason I know that is,
I have it now.

Sure, it used to be your mum's,
but now it's all mine.

The World Cup
got underway today.

And we have talked before about
the organization behind it, FIFA.

A cartel-like group of scumbags
and assorted criminals

who occasionally
put on soccer matches.

FIFA has always been terrible.
Which is what makes it a little hard

to hear FIFA's current president claim
that their event isn't just about sport,

it's a net positive for humanity.

This FIFA World Cup,
a tournament of peace and unity,

will be the one that brings the world
together after some difficult times.

We should never underestimate
the unifying power

that something so unique has.

That is some pretty grandiose talk
coming from the star

of "What the f*ck Are Those Eyebrows,
Charlie Brown?"

But the truth is a lot more
complicated than that.

Which is not to say that I am not
excited about the World Cup.

Because I am.

It only happens every four years,
and I look forward to it

the way people with leap-year birthdays
look forward to leap years:

with an enthusiasm
somewhere between "understandable"

and honestly "kind of pathetic".

This World Cup is being hosted,
for the very first time,

in the Middle East,
by the small nation of Qatar,

which is going all-out to turn it
into a major branding event,

even signing a multi-million-dollar
agreement with David Beckham

to be an ambassador
for the country,

which presumably includes getting him
to make more videos like this.

I think everyone knows
how much I love food,

and the food culture
is very exciting in Qatar.

This is what I love.
I love to go to spice markets.

I love to go to fish markets.

I love Murakami.

Everybody knows
how much I love a taco.

What I love is also,
we are now in this amazing place

using the traditional spices.

I love riding.
I love a bike community.

I love being
in the middle of nowhere

and talking and eating.

This is perfection for me.

Okay. So, by my count,
David Beckham loves the following:

food, food culture,
spice markets, fish markets,

Murakami, a taco, bike culture,
and, of course,

being in the middle of nowhere,
eating and talking.

They really should've
just kept taking him places,

to see what they could get him
to say he loves for money.

"I love public bathrooms. The aromas,
the atmosphere, I just love 'em.

Everyone knows how much I love
tombstones and grieving families.

I love proctologist offices.
I just love proctologist culture.

This is perfection for me."

The point is, the next month is Qatar's
big moment on the world stage.

They're hosting an event expected
to attract over a million spectators,

in person, to a country
just the size of Connecticut.

But as you may have heard,
underneath the fun, pageantry,

and David Beckham doing
bad Anthony Bourdain cosplay

is a much darker story,

small signs of which
have leaked out this week,

like in this moment
from a Danish reporter.

How would you describe working
conditions for journalists in Qatar?

I can show you what the situation is
like by turning the camera 'round.

We are live on Danish television.

And as you can see,
they are stopping us filming.

You invited the whole world
to come here.

Why can't we film?
It's a public place.

You can break the camera.
You want to break the camera?

Okay, you can break
the camera.

You are threatening us
by smashing the camera.

Just a reminder. He was asked,

"How would you describe working
conditions for journalists in Qatar?"

And just seconds later,
a bunch of golf cart g*ons

showed up to answer
that question for him.

Although, credit to this guy for being
so excited to appear on Danish TV

that he gave the camera a little wave,

before presumably smashing
the sh*t out of it.

But harassing journalists
is the tip of the iceberg here,

one that includes a host
of human rights violations.

Given all of that, tonight,
let's talk about the Qatar World Cup.

And let's start by going back
to the moment, back in 2010,

when the winner of the bid
to host this tournament

was announced by the former
head of FIFA, Sepp Blatter.

The winner to organize

the two-22 FIFA World Cup

is Qatar!

As a general rule,
I try not to make fun

of old men who don't speak English
as a first language,

but, due to evil,
Sepp Blatter is an exception,

and him saying "two-22"
like a vampire telling the time

will just always be funny to me.

But that moment truly stunned people,
because, for reasons that, it turns out,

FIFA were fully aware of, Qatar
was a fundamentally unsound choice

for a summer soccer tournament.

FIFA conducted its own objective
analysis of the various bids,

which found that Qatar was an
unsuitable place to host the World Cup

and a dangerous place
to host the World Cup.

That the summer temperatures
would be a hazard

to the health of the players
and the fans,

that Doha simply didn't have space

for the kind of stadium infrastructure
that was going to be required.

They would have to build
nine new stadiums,

and there wasn't enough room
for them in Doha.

So, they would have to kind of create
a whole new city.

Yeah, Qatar wasn't just a surprising
choice, it was logically inexplicable.

It'd be like
if the Westminster Dog Show

awarded the "best in show" title
to a tortoise.

Nothing against that tortoise,
but not only should it not have won,

it should've been
automatically disqualified.

The first and most obvious problem

was that Qatar is notoriously
scorching hot in the summer.

That is why FIFA eventually moved
the World Cup to November.

But Qatar's initial pitch pretended
that heat wouldn't be an issue,

promising that they'd build
air-conditioned outdoor stadiums,

while Qatari scientists
pitched ideas like a massive,

remote-control artificial cloud

that they could move around
to cover stadiums in shade.

Which, A, didn't exist, and B,
wouldn't solve your problem anyway.

It's the multimillion-dollar equivalent

of pulling down the little car flap
to keep the sun out of your eyes.

And at this point,
you will not be surprised to learn

of the many accusations that Qatar won
their World Cup bid through bribery,

with allegations that three of the
officials who agreed to vote for Qatar,

did so in exchange
for $1 million each.

And I won't say that Qatar definitely
got the World Cup through bribery.

But I won't say that they didn't.
And I will say that they did.

And while they deny that there
was any misconduct in their bid,

the fact remained
that they were gonna need to build

not just a bunch of new stadiums,
but also, "a new airport,

metro system, roads,
and about 100 new hotels".

They had to build so much
new infrastructure, in fact,

that even the World Cup's mascot,
La'eeb,

doesn't seem to be able to believe
what his country has just done.

First thing I want to show you
is the stadiums.

The stadiums!

Eight mind-blowing arenas,

designed by some of the best
architects in the world!

This is Lusail City.

Can you believe it didn't exist


Now, it's one of the cities hosting
FIFA World Cup matches.

You know what, La'eeb?

I can't believe that city
wasn't there 10 years ago, either,

and it's actually a bit alarming!

If you drove by an empty plot of land
with a sign reading,

"Coming Soon: A T.G.I.Fridays!"

and the very next day, drove by
and saw the grand opening of it,

you'd rightly have some questions about
how the f*ck it happened that fast.

According to one estimate,
Qatar's government has spent

more than $300 billion
on infrastructure projects.

And look, they can afford that.
They have a lot of money,

thanks to their huge oil
and natural gas reserves.

What they don't have a lot of,
though, is Qataris,

because Qatari nationals
only number around 380,000,

however, the country has an overall
population of nearly three million.

And that is because 90% of it consists
of foreigners and migrant workers.

And it's migrant workers who perform
most of the manual labor there.

And those laborers
are the ones who've had to build

all the new infrastructure
for this tournament.

Which brings us to one
of the major scandals underlying it.

Qatar recruited hundreds
of thousands of workers,

mainly from India, Nepal,
and Bangladesh,

through agencies
in their home countries.

Just to secure a job,
migrants had little choice

but to pay recruitment fees of up
to $4,000 before they left the country.

And once they got to Qatar,
they were already in debt

and trapped in a system
known in the Middle East as kafala.

The kafala system can be a form
of modern-day sl*very,

and the features of it amount
in some cases to forced labor.

It's true. All the new stadiums
and infrastructure

were essentially built
through modern-day sl*very.

So, we should probably introduce
a new collective noun

to refer to this group of stadiums.

A gaggle of geese, a pod of whales,
an atrocity of stadiums.

The kafala system exists in some form
in several countries in the Middle East.

And under it in Qatar,
workers couldn't switch jobs

or leave the country without the
explicit permission of their employer,

in some cases, because they might've
literally had their passport taken away.

And being so fully dependent
on an employer

meant that laborers
had virtually no rights.

Take Anish, a laborer from Nepal,

who maintains
that he was routinely underpaid,

and for doing work
in truly brutal conditions.

I went to Qatar in 2019.

On the 21st of March, I started
working at the Lusail Stadium.

It was very hot in Qatar.

It got up to 52 degrees Celsius
the first year I was there.

I used to sweat in the exact way
as if it was raining from the sky.

You know how hot


It's 125 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you build a stadium in that heat,
you should get to own it.

That shouldn't be Lusail Stadium.
That should be Anish's f*cking Stadium,

and no one should be allowed inside it
without saying that out loud.

And there's something
pretty f*cked up about arguing,

"It's too hot for peak athletes
to be outside for 90 minutes,

but it's completely fine for people
to build stadiums in that heat

for hours a day,
and for months on end."

And that's not even getting
into the living conditions

that workers there
were subjected to.

We drove outside the city to a place the
government doesn't want people to see:

the sprawling labor camps
where the workers are housed.

Inside, the men were packed
wall to wall, eight to a room.

The heat was stifling,
the kitchen filthy,

the beds, they told us,
infested with bedbugs.


among 150 other men.

They share two bathrooms.

There's no shower here?
There's nowhere to wash your body?

- No.
- Where do you wash your body?

- The buckets.
- You wash your body in the toilet?

Hard to believe,
but in these camps, it's routine.

At another camp, the toilets
overflowed with sewage,

and two filthy kitchens
were being shared by 600 men.

That is horrifying. No one
should ever have to live like that.

Just wait until La'eeb
finds out about this.

Yeah.

Yeah, your tournament's built
on human suffering, buddy!

And you should know,
when that reporter went and talked

to the head of one of Qatar's
leading sports organizations,

it didn't go well.

You go yourself and investigate it.

You will see them living in a very,
you know, comfortable,

healthy environment.

- Comfortable and healthy?
- Of course.

They are living
in a very healthy environment.

Mr. Al-Sulaiteen, with all due respect,
we have gone to the camps.

- You went yourself?
- Yes. This week in Doha.

Where you have hundreds of thousands
of men living in labor camps,

some of them packed into small rooms,
eight men to a room

like the one we saw,


Have you been
to the labor camps yourself, sir?

I'm not going to answer
your questions.

- You don't want to answer that?
- I don't want to answer.

And with that,
we were told the interview was over.

Incredible.

Nothing says "workers live in a
comfortable and healthy environment"

quite like leaving the room


that the person you're talking
to has actually seen that environment.

And it gets worse.

A Guardian investigation
found that 6,500 migrant workers

d*ed in Qatar
from 2010 to 2020.

That number accounts for all
migrant worker deaths in Qatar,

not just those who worked
on stadiums.

And the Qatari
government's preferred count

states that there've
actually only been 37 deaths

among laborers
at World Cup stadiums,

and of those, that only three
were "work-related".

But if that number
seems suspiciously low to you,

it's because it very much is.

Their "preferred count"
is conveniently limited

to the small handful
of work sites

that were under the highest level
of scrutiny

and exclude the hundreds of other
World Cup-related projects.

What's more, autopsies weren't
done on most of these workers,

with one investigation finding
that nearly 70% of deaths of Indian,

Nepali, and Bangladeshi nationals

were attributed to "natural causes"
or "cardiac arrest".

Which feels deliberately vague.

Because cardiac arrest
just means their heart stopped,

which is literally
how everybody dies.

I can tell you with full confidence
that "his heart stopped"

is how both I and Kid Rock
will die.

That doesn't mean
that our cardiac arrest

will be caused by the same thing,
though, does it?

One of our deaths
will likely involve a lot of meth,

a monster truck,
and a variety of illegal fireworks,

and the other death
will be Kid Rock's.

And Qatar will argue that they have
made some significant labor reforms.

It's something that the head
of their World Cup efforts

has proudly bragged about.

If we look at the actions that
the government has taken so far,

laws implemented
and being applied as well,

the kafala system
has been dismantled.

Both in terms of allowing
for workers to change employers

and at the same time also there
was the exit permit system.

They couldn't leave
without permission.

That has been dismantled as well.

Those reforms sound great,
and to an extent, they are.

But they also have
some major asterisks on them.

Workers in Qatar have said
that "they are still required

to get permission
from their current employer

before they can move
to a new job",

and have also experienced
"retaliation from their employers"

when they try to leave.

But also, the reforms
that he's bragging about there

only began
to be implemented in 2018,

when much of the hard work
was already done.

So, he is bragging about
dismantling the kafala system

while sitting
in a stadium built using it.

The only way that pat on the back
could've been more hypocritical

is if he'd forced a migrant worker
to do it for him in 120-degree heat.

Incredibly it's not just Qatar bragging
about the progress that's been made.

FIFA has had the nerve
to claim credit for it, too.

All the changes
that have happened in this country

in terms of human rights
and workers' rights and so on,

human rights,
would not have happened,

or certainly not at the same speed
without the projectors of the World Cup.

Corruption Caillou, that is one hell
of a f*cking claim there.

Because you cannot possibly argue
FIFA deserves credit here.

FIFA's evaluation of Qatar's bid

had literally zero mentions
of human rights

or demands for labor reforms.

Think of it like this:
if the country

had made no changes to its kafala
system in the past few years,

and instead had passed a law called

"The Doubling Down
on sl*ve Labor Act of 2019",

you know
what would have happened?

The World Cup still would
have kicked off in Qatar today.

Isn't that right, La'eeb?
Wink if you agree!

I f*cking knew it! I knew you knew
what was going on there!

When FIFA awarded Qatar
the World Cup,

there was only one way
those stadiums were getting built,

and there was only one group of people
who were going to do it,

and they gave them
the tournament anyway.

And that is not
the only troubling thing

that they had
to have known back then.

Let's take a moment to talk
about Qatar's human rights situation.

And I recognize, every country
has human rights issues,

including this one,
for more on that,

see every other story
this show has ever done.

But Qatar is, in some ways,
next level.

Women there
have very limited rights.

They need permission
from their male guardians to marry,

work in many government jobs,
and travel abroad until certain ages.

Also, because sex
outside of marriage is illegal,

pregnant women have to present
a marriage certificate

to receive prenatal care.

Which I hesitate
to even tell you about,

just in case the Supreme Court
is watching this show tonight

and getting any new ideas.

As for the LGBT community,
sexual conduct between men

is criminalized and can result
in seven years in prison.

And FIFA
was not unaware of this.

Sepp Blatter even joked
about it just days after Qatar

was awarded the tournament.

Because when he was asked what
advice he would give to gay fans

who might want to travel to Qatar,
this was his fun response.

Then I would say then that they should
refrain from any sexual activities.

They say in comedy, you can
either punch up, punch down,

or co-sign oppressive governments
for a quick laugh

while looking like the Penguin
went to Wharton,

and we all know
which option he just chose there.

Get Sepp Blatter a Netflix special.
It seems like he's ready.

Qatar has repeated that everyone
is welcome at this World Cup,

including gay fans.

But as this gay Qatari man,
who was granted asylum in the U.S.

citing the dangers he faced there,
points out,

even if that is the case
for the next four weeks,

it's a hell of a blind eye to turn.

It's like having…

a household with children
that are domestically abused.

And now, you are gonna have
a fancy dinner party.

People can come in,
they can bring their kids.

Their kids can jump on the table
and they can do everything they want.

The children that live there

are gonna be in the basement,
quiet, behaving.

And they can't jump on the table
like the other kids that visited,

because they will be punished
in that household for doing it.

Now you know that the children
there are abused,

so how are you showing up
to our home?

Exactly.

The Qatari government is engaging
in some truly horrendous behavior.

And we can't just gloss over that and
uncritically put it in the spotlight.

It's an authoritarian regime,
not Mel f*cking Gibson.

By the way, here's a fun game.

Guess how many movies
he's been in this year?

You're wrong, it's seven.
This truly has been the year of Mel!

And none of this,
the working conditions,

the oppression of women
or gay people,

was a dealbreaker for FIFA.

Qatar's authoritarian tendencies
may have been a deal-sweetener,

because FIFA has long
had a soft spot for autocrats.

And I'm not just saying that

because they gave the World Cup
to Russia in 2018,

or went ahead with one
in Argentina in 1978,

when it was run
by a m*llitary dictatorship,

or even that they held the second
World Cup in Mussolini's Italy in 1934.

They've said it themselves.

FIFA's former secretary general,
Jerome Valcke, once said,

"I will say something which is crazy,
but less democracy

is sometimes better
for organizing a World Cup.

When you have
a very strong head of state,

that is easier for us organizers."

And even for a quote
which is prefaced by,

"I will say
something which is crazy,"

that is f*cking nuts.

But authoritarians are good for FIFA,
and FIFA is good for authoritarians.

As this critic points out,
Russia's World Cup four years ago

was preceded by a lot of controversy
and criticism,

but that's not what people
remember about it.

What you saw
in the run-up to 2018

was a lot of coverage
of what was happening in Russia,

a lot of coverage
of the rights abuses,

a lot of interest in that,
and a lot of engagement in it.

And I think what the Qataris will have
noticed was how that all vanished

as soon as the first whistle blew.

And I think everyone
became captivated by the football.

The Qataris know that if they
can just get to that first whistle,

then they're over the line.

It's true.
Such is the power of the World Cup.

Any memories of controversy are likely
to be washed away once it begins.

And incidentally,
what a VIP box to be a part of there.

Quick tip for the president of FIFA,
if you're gonna make arguments

about how your organization
is a global force for good,

maybe try not to sit

between Mohammad bin Salman
and Vladimir Putin,

because you are the filling
in a real sh*t sandwich there.

And the thing is,
that first whistle has now been blown.

Qatar played Ecuador in the opening
game of the tournament earlier today.

So, what now?

Well, workers like Anish hope
that some of the athletes participating

can help shine a light on all the
exploitation that went into this event.

My message for Messi,

thousands of workers like me
have worked on the stadium.

We did not get our salary,
our benefits.

I hope that if you talk
about workers like us,

maybe we will get
what we are owed.

I do not have much faith,
but still, I have hope.

And that hope is pretty moving,

especially given all the reasons
not to have any.

And I really hope
that Messi hears that message.

Though, given that he plays
for Paris Saint-Germain,

a team literally owned by
the state investment fund of Qatar,

I wouldn't hold your breath
waiting for him to criticize them.

People generally don't openly sh*t
on their employers,

unless of course that employer
is Warner Brothers Discovery,

in which case
you can happily sh*t away,

because apparently they're too busy
canceling shows to notice.

I will say, some players, to their
credit, have been speaking out.

Harry Kane
and other team captains

have said that they'll wear a OneLove
armband during games,

and organizations from
Australia's national team to FIFPRO,

the international players' union,

have issued statements condemning
Qatar's treatment of workers,

women, and gay people.

But ultimately, it's not the players
who are responsible for this mess,

it's FIFA.

They put the World Cup in Qatar,

and everything that's happened since
then has been a complete disgrace.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't
watch this World Cup

or be excited about it.

As tough as this is to admit,
I will be watching.

One of my greatest joys is sitting
completely alone in my living room

and cheering on England
until they're inevitably

knocked out in the quarterfinals
on penalties.

But let's try and make sure
a line is drawn here.

Because in a few weeks' time,
the World Cup will be over.

The final whistle will be blown
on December 18th

in the stadium that Anish built

in a city
that didn't exist 10 years ago,

and FIFA will happily move on.

And while they will point
to new human rights policies

that they've now adopted,

we'll see how truly committed
to those they really are.

Especially given that one of the
suitors to host the 2030 World Cup

is rumored to be Saudi Arabia,
which also uses the kafala system

and has an even worse
human rights record than Qatar.

There is no reason to believe
that FIFA will ever do the right thing.

But I would love it if it could,
for just once in its shitty history,

find a way to hold itself to the lofty
ideals that it has the gall to profess.

I would love that as much
as I love the World Cup itself,

and maybe, just maybe,

even as much as David Beckham
loves a taco.

Because that would be
perfection for me.

And now, this!

And Now…

People on TV
Interrogate the Important Question:

Do You Say Pecan or Pecan?

- Talk about pecan and pecan.
- What do you say?

It's pecan.

- I'll trust the Southerner on this one.
- It's pecan. You say pecan?

- You don't like pecan pie?
- I don't like pecan pie.

- It's pecan.
- It's a pecan.

- I love the Publix pecan Danish.
- I'm glad you say pecan.

- I do, too.
- It's not a pecan?

- We have toasted pecans here.
- Toasted pecans.

- Pecan or pecan?
- It's pecan.

- I say pecans.
- Pecan.

Okay, fine.

- You're also going to add one ounce…
- It's pecan!

- One ounce of simple syrup.
- Pecan!

- You say pecan?
- I say pecan.

- Of course.
- I don't know what to say.

- Pecan or pecan?
- It's a pecan.

Who wants to eat
something called a pecan?

- Pecan or pecan?
- It's not a urinary device.

- Are they pecans or pecans?
- They're both delicious. I don't care.

Do you say pecan or pecan?
Praline or praline?

I say thanks so much.
One of our good friends, Mel B…

Moving on.

Before we go,
this is our final show of the year,

and frankly,
it has been a turbulent one,

from Britain having its shortest and
weirdest-serving prime minister ever,

to Roe v. Wade being overturned,
to Russia's w*r in Ukraine,

which, lest we forget,
began back in February,

with the haunting sound
of air-raid sirens,

and was covered on CNN
with this jarring moment.

Air Raid Sirens Riding Out
in Ukraine's Capital.

And a little bit of chicken fried,
cold beer on a Friday night.

A pair of jeans that fit just right
and the radio up.

Get five boneless wings for $1
with any handcrafted burger.

Only at Applebee's.

Yeah. The point is,
it's been a very weird year.

Thankfully, though,
we did manage to have some fun.

We produced a Subway-sandwich
Korean drama,

we sent a polar bear to bet on an ice
melting contest in Alaska,

we blackmailed Congress
with information that we still have,

and Nick Offerman blew up a trash can
to make a point about elections.

But perhaps our weirdest moment

came when we discussed
AI image generators.

Because you may remember,
we learned that people

had made a surprisingly large number
of AI-generated images of me,

with this generator alone
featuring around 500 of them.

We then stumbled
on a whole sequence of images

that involved me falling in love
with a cabbage and marrying it,

something that we then
re-created in person,

with Steve Buscemi presiding
as the wedding officiant.

Yeah, I married a cabbage this year,
and it was a beautiful day.

I have a quick update. Because
recently we checked that generator,

to see if more images
had been made of me,

and it turns out
that they very much had.

A search for my name on there
currently returns over 15,000 results.

And let me be very clear:
this has to stop.

This sh*t is getting out of hand.

Some users were apparently continuing
to speculate on my romantic exploits,

with images like

"John Oliver has tired of cabbage,
is now dating a carrot,"

while others have moved on, like
with this one starting with the prompt,

"two raccoons conducting
an interview of John Oliver",

which produced this result.

And kudos for going with
my point of view in that situation.

But one new sequence of images
in particular caught our eye,

because it seemed to be setting
a new story in motion.

It begins with this prompt:

"John Oliver unicycling towards
a very steep mountainous hill".

Which prompted this almost
serene set of images.

However, there is a development,
because the next image is,

"While unicycling up a very steep
mountainous hill,

John Oliver
realizes he can't even unicycle,

doesn't ever want to,
and not only is he afraid of heights,

he literally has a crippling
fear of unicycles.

As he tumbles down the hill in agony,
he says his trademark catchphrase,

'Why do unicycles exist!?'"

Which, to be fair, is a thing
that I do say all the time!

There are then a few images of me,
post-unicycle-accident,

in the hospital, until finally,
they typed in the prompt,

"After recovering
from his unicycle accident,

John Oliver returns to his show
where he does one of those wild

'John Oliver has HBO money' stunts,

like I guess he ties together


because 'that's what nature
intended' or something,

and then there are
like 50 clowns on stage

riding the dangerous
John Oliver bi-unicycles

and then John is like 'that's our show,
see you next week.'"

And picture in your mind right now
what a spectacular image

would be generated
by a description like that.

Do you have that image
in your mind?

Good. Because this is the image
the AI produced.

Very cleverly,

focusing on the "see you next week"
part of that prompt.

Look how happy I look there!

And it is such a shame.

The concept of chaotic clowns wobbling
around dangerously on unicycles

felt like a pretty decent metaphor
for the year that we all went through.

It's messy, idiotic,
a little bit scary,

and it feels like someone
didn't fully think it all through.

And it's frustrating not being able
to see that image for ourselves.

Is something
that someone might say,

if they didn't have access
to HBO production budgets.

So, with that said, to close out
our season, here it is!

The physical manifestation
of the last year!

Look at all these f*cking clowns!

Look at them!

Look at this utter atrocity!

Thank you so much for watching
our show this year!

We really appreciate it!

Thanks to our staff…
Stop honking!

Thanks to our staff
for working so hard.

We will be back next year.
I don't like this at all!

We'll be back next February.
Please stay safe until then.

Say it with me:
why do unicycles exist?

Classic phrase!
See you next year, good night!