"On the backs of the dead" - Cologne brewery boycotts World Cup in Qatar

Created: 09/19/2022, 20:19

By: Oliver Schmitz

The football World Cup 2022 in Qatar will not be broadcast in any of the Mühlen Kölsch restaurants or the brewery zur Malzmühle.

(Iconic image) © Oliver Berg/dpa

Football boycott in Cologne: The Mühlen Kölsch brewery will not show any games from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

This affects many popular breweries.

Cologne – The 2022 World Cup will already go down in history.

Not only is it the first tournament to take place in winter, it is also the most controversial.

Because in the course of the preparations, especially the construction of the stadium, a number of human rights violations are obviously taking place in the host country Qatar.

Something that Mühlen Kölsch from Cologne does not simply want to accept.

"We have decided to forgo football broadcasts from the World Cup in all of our restaurants!" the traditional brewery said on Friday (September 16) on Facebook.

This includes the popular "Brauhaus zur Malzmühle" on Heumarkt in Cologne, as reported by 24RHEIN.

The World Cup boycott affects all restaurants and Kölsch bars in the Mühlen brewery.

There will be no TV broadcast of matches of the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar at all locations.

The tournament will take place from November 20th to December 18th, 2022.

• Mühlen Kölsch Malzmühle Cologne

  , Heumarkt 6, 50667 Cologne

• Mühlen Koelsch ANNO 1858

  , Heumarkt 6, 50667 Cologne

• Mühlen Kölsch MühlenBar

  , Heumarkt 6, 50667 Cologne

• Brauhaus Pütz Cologne

  , Engelbertstrasse 67, 50674 Cologne

• Brauhaus Em Kolsche Boor

  , Eigelstein 121-123, 50668 Cologne

• BRAUWELT KÖLN

  , Kalker Hauptstraße 260/262, 51103 Cologne

Mühlen Kölsch does not want to be hypocritical

According to their own statements, not only Cologne but also the Kölsch-Brauerei Mühlen has “always stood for diversity, international understanding and cosmopolitanism”.

For this reason, the beer manufacturer has now decided to take a clear stance against the upcoming World Cup in Qatar.

In Düsseldorf, among other places, a traditional brewery has already opted for the World Cup boycott.

In the Facebook post, Mühlen Kölsch explained the boycott decision as follows: "We can't just swap the Ukraine flags on our facade for German flags and pretend everything is fine!

The human rights violations in the host country and the suffering of the numerous guest workers are not compatible with our values".

The Cologne brewery relies on research by the human rights organization Amnesty International, which has been reporting "catastrophic conditions on the construction sites of the World Cup stadiums" for years.

The upcoming football World Cup in Qatar would therefore be “literally played out on the backs of more than 6,500 dead people who have died under the inhumane conditions on the local construction sites since the contract was awarded to Qatar,” writes Mühlen Kölsch.

World Cup boycott of Mühlen Kölsch: Other Cologne pubs without TV broadcast

Many other Cologne pubs have already announced a boycott for TV broadcasts of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

These include the "Chlodwig Eck" and the "Lotta" in the southern part of the city, the "Low Budget" in the Belgian Quarter or "The Opera" in the Composers' Quarter.

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Above all, there was a lot of positive encouragement for the boycott decisions.

"Great respect for this decision.

I hope many will follow this example," wrote one user under Mühlen Kölsch's Facebook post.

Another wrote: "Awesome!!!!

Strong!!!

Now I'm going to buy a crate of Mühlen Kölsch.”