The dramatic side effects of this World Cup …
Now they have been named by the host himself in an interview!
The Secretary General of the Organizing Committee, Hassan al-Thawadi (44), has spoken of several hundred guest workers dead in connection with the World Cup in Qatar. “The estimate is around 400, between 400 and 500. I don’t have the exact number,” al-Thawadi said in an interview with Piers Morgan for the British TV channel “Talk TV”.
Qatar is thus drastically correcting the (vaguely) published figures upwards.
Morgan had previously asked: “Do you know how many people have died in Qatar in the last 12 years in construction work related to the World Cup since they were awarded the contract? In other words: new hotels, new bridges, whatever. What is the realistic total number of migrant workers who have died as a result of World Cup work?”
The organizing committee then pointed out on Tuesday followingnoon that al-Thawadi’s statement only referred to national statistics for all work-related deaths nationwide in Qatar, for all sectors and nationalities, in the period from 2014 to 2020. That number is 414.
According to official information, there were three work-related and 37 non-work-related deaths on the stadium and other official World Cup construction sites. The organizing committee had not yet given any figures on the total number of guest workers who died in connection with the World Cup.
A sensational report by the British “Guardian” in early 2021 had spoken of more than 6,500 dead foreign workers from five Asian countries in the emirate in the ten years since the World Cup was awarded in 2010. Qatar had rejected the following criticism and spoke of a normal death rate.
In the conversation, Hassan al-Thawadi once once more referred to the reforms that have improved the conditions for workers on the World Cup construction sites in the emirate in recent years.
The German Football Association and other European associations are campaigning for a compensation fund for guest workers in Qatar and for the establishment of a guest worker center in Doha.