Robbie Williams defends decision to perform at Qatar World Cup - but people aren’t convinced

Robbie Williams has defended his decision to perform at the Qatar World Cup, saying it would be "hypocritical" not to.

It comes as Qatar is being condemned for notions of sportswashing, reports of 6,500 migrant worker deaths, appalling attitudes to LGBTQ+ rights and claims of modern slavery and a host of other problems.

The 48-year-old spoke to il Venerdi, which is the magazine of the la Repubblica newspaper, saying: "I don't condone any abuses of human rights anywhere.”

"But if we're not condoning human rights abuses anywhere, I wouldn't even be able to perform in my kitchen."

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He added: "Anybody leaving messages saying 'no to Qatar' are doing so on Chinese technology. It would be hypocritical of me to not go [to Qatar] because of the places that I do go to.

The singer gave his thoughts on the upcoming tournamentAndreas Rentz/Getty Images

"I think that the hypocrisy there is that if we take that case in this place, we need to apply that unilaterally to the world... Then if we apply that unilaterally to the world, nobody can go anywhere."

His comments didn’t seem to go down well with social media users afterwards, with one saying: “Tell the truth, no need to wrap it up in a story.”

Another added: “Just be honest and say the money was too good to pass up.”

One more wrote: “Robbie Williams appearing to say he commits human rights abuses in his kitchen has really cracked me up.”

A final one joked: “What human rights has he been abusing his own kitchen then.”

The Qatar World Cup begins today (November 20) with the opening ceremony taking place shortly before Qatar vs Equador.

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