12 Horrible Facts About The Qatar Football World Cup In 2022 That Will Make You Cringe

Football is the most spectated sport in the world. More than 700 million viewers tune in to watch the event.
Forget the passion for the sport and the beautiful game for a bit. The tournament brings in a lot of money, investments and tourism to the hosting country.

And fame.

And that is why Qatar so desperately wanted to host it and won the bid in a storm of controversy in the form of bribery charges. And every hosting nation wants to outdo the previous host in making the tournament as grand as possible.

And with the evidence we have, Qatar is going all out to make it as grand as possible, even if that means working
the people to death.

How?

1. Qatar is one of the richest countries in the world with per capita income of 62 lakh rupees.

It is known as a country of very high human development, and it is the most advanced in its terms in the Arab peninsula.

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2. But the actual number of Qataris living in Qatar is just 250,000

The rest are expatriates who have come to Qatar seeking jobs.

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3. It is these million expats that are going to build the stadiums and other infrastructure for the World Cup

And it is safe to say that none of the Qataris are working as labourers or even in the lower echelons of the construction business. All the hard work is done by migrant foreign workers.

 

4. When the workers are hired, they are promised a much larger pay and given very less on arrival.

Agents extort exorbitant amount of money from these people as fees to get them to Qatar. A Bangladeshi paid almost 3 lakh Indian rupees just to get to Qatar and work as a stone mason.

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5. Then their passports are taken away and they are kept as virtual slaves

Qatar has a labour sponsorship law, which means that the employer has complete control of the employee. The employee cannot change jobs or even leave the country if he wants to.

This gives the employers a chance to exploit the workers – making them work for long hours, underpaying them and basically not giving a damn about them at all.

Female migrant workers have been victims of prostitution just because they didn’t have an option of leaving when they wanted, and the fact that the employer sponsors the employment.

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6. The living quarters of these workers are pathetic

There is no measure of decency in their living quarters. They are given filthy and thin mattresses to lie on. They have communal kitchens that are basically in shambles and covered in dirt and grime.

A sharp contrast to the living amenities of the lowest-paying tourist who will come to watch the World Cup.

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7. 12 people live in 4m X 4m room and even the washroom is open.

There is no privacy. The washroom is where they wash their utensils too. And take baths. There are no toilets, just holes in the floor.

The workers have no option than to live like this, because they are helpless, quite literally.

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8. The average temperature in the country is 40 degrees Celsius

On summer days, the daytime temperature is a constant 50 degrees celsius.

 

9. And the workers work for more than 12 hours in this heat every day

Without any protective gear or cooling. Some are even denied water to drink and food to eat.

There have been cases where the workers have claimed that they have worked for 12 hours without any food or water whatsoever.

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10. Men as young as 25 are dying of heart attacks

Because of heat and overwork.

 

12. More than 1200 workers have died since 2010

And 4000 are estimated to die by 2022.

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11. This includes 700 Indians too.

700 Indians are a lot, even if we are a country of 1.2 billion. The argument against this is that the same number of workers die in India too.

But they do not die because of heart attacks and despicable working conditions. If a labourer wants to quit in India, he can leave whenever he wants to.

In Qatar, the worker is tied to the job until the employer dismisses him.

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12. Very little is being done by the Qatari people to address this issue

After Amnesty International have explicitly stated that they have to reel this problem in.

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When we work in air-conditioned offices, and go back to cozy homes on our vehicles, we do not really
realize how oppressive the heat can get in the summer. Imagine doing hard labor in the heat, without any rest
or water.

How do you expect to NOT get a heat stroke or heart attack?

And the surprising part is that the whole world knows, because the stories about the slavery
came out quite a while ago. But nothing is being done about it.

If we do not go for the human angle, let’s gun our nationalist engines, shall we?

After all, we are proud Indians, right? 700 Indians dead. Nothing done. Nothing.

Maybe the air conditioning is getting really comfortable, isn’t it?

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