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Date: 9th October 2025
Abdullah Ibhais lives in Jordan and is a former media manager for the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy of the FIFA World Cup 2022.
He was arrested in 2019, after he criticised the way the Qatari authorities had handled a workers’ protest, highlighting mistreatment of migrant labourers. He later spent three years in prison after being convicted on a number of charges, including causing harm to the Supreme Committee.
“He has gone through experiences that nobody else in this room has gone through and hopefully never will,” said Jens Sejer Andersen, founder and senior advisor at Play the Game in his motivation for the award.
“When faced with evidence of exploitation and wrongdoing, Abdullah Ibhais chose not to protect the system but to protect the truth. He did so not only for his own sake, but for hundreds of thousands of people in a dire situation. The price was severe, and his act of integrity that should have been celebrated by world sport became a pretext for punishment,” said Andersen.
Today, Abdullah Ibhais lives in freedom but continues to speak out.
“For this extraordinary courage, for defending truth at great personal cost, and for reminding the world that loyalty to sport must never come before loyalty to humanity, we present this Play the Game Award 2025 to Abdullah Ibhais,” said Andersen.
Read more about the Play Award and a list of previous winners
Article and photo credit www.playthegame.org
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