According to a Qatari official in charge of FIFA World Cup delivery, 400 to 500 migrant labourers may have perished while working on World Cup-related projects. Hassan al-Thawadi, the executive director of the World Cup and secretary general of the Supreme Committee for delivery and legacy, made the somewhat ‘grim’ remark in an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan. He didn’t give specific fatality figures though, since it was still under discussion.
‘The range for the estimate is 400 to 500. I’m not sure of the precise figure; it’s been talked about. Simply put, one death is too many’, according to al-Thawadi. ‘However, each year the health and safety requirements on the venues improve, at least on our World Cup locations, which are within our control. Definitely to the degree that labour unions are applauding the improvements made and the work done on World Cup grounds’.
Notably, the Supreme Committee had previously claimed that since the start of the infrastructure construction in 2014, there had only been three worker fatalities and 37 fatalities from other causes. However, a Guardian report from the previous year claimed that 6,500 migrant workers from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka had perished while the WC infrastructure was being built. Since FIFA gave the West Asian nation hosting duties nearly ten years ago, the World Cup in Qatar has not been without controversy.
Experts claim that the oil-rich nation is self-sportwashing in the WC. It has attempted to construct the stadiums and associated infrastructure from the ground up, but this has cost close to $220 billion. The hosting of the quadrennial event in Qatar has drawn criticism from a number of footballing nations. FIFA has stopped the protests in their tracks, though.
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