The World Cup is a tournament we all know and love.  It comes and goes every four years leaving much excitement as to who is going to win the next one.  But what some people may not know is that new stadiums must be built every year in a new location to accommodate all the games.  This year the World Cup was held in Qatar, an Arabian Country located in the Middle East.  Qatar receives many migrant workers each year for the construction of big infrastructure projects, and the World Cup stadiums required a lot of workers so it could all get done in 10 years.  From the time they heard the news about hosting the 2022 World Cup in 2010, there have been 6,500 deaths among migrant workers.  This is a significantly higher death toll of workers than any other World Cup construction which leads many people to ask the question, “Why?”

Countries such as India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka sent over some migrant workers to aid with the construction of the stadiums.  Sadly, a good portion of these people was sent home dead with the cause of death noted as “natural causes.”  The research was done to get the answer of why so many people died in the construction of these stadiums compared to the other World Cup stadiums in the past.  The research that was done leads to one reason why: carelessness.  The living conditions of the workers were very poor despite the complaints the Qatar government received from relatives of the workers there.  One migrant worker named Mahammad Shahid Miah was in his dorm one night when floodwater came in and came into contact with an exposed cable.  Miah got up from where he was and stepped in the water and was electrocuted immediately and died.  The death report that Qatar reported was very vague and it left Miah’s family angered that the government didn’t care as much as it should.  Also, the migrant workers pay to reserve their spot as a worker in the construction of the World Cup stadiums and other projects.  So, Miah paid £3,500 to reserve his spot, and when he died, the rest of the money he still had to pay was passed on to his family.  His family is very mad that they are left to pay his debt when it was Qatar’s fault that he died.  What makes it even worse for relatives is that the Qatar government was very secretive about this matter most likely because they didn’t want bad publicity for the World Cup.

Studies were done based on the death count from December 2010 to when construction was finished, and it was estimated that an average of 12 migrant workers died each week during the construction.  Data from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka revealed that 5,927 workers died between the period from 2011-2020.  “I honestly just think there was a lack of care, maybe because they were in a rush to build all of the stadiums, but that’s not an excuse to be careless with safety,” says Mario Santos, owner of M.D. Contractors.  Santos has been in the construction world for about 15 years now and is now successfully running his own business doing larger apartment jobs as well as small renovations.  Although his jobs aren’t as big as the World Cup, all construction abides by the same rule, safety first.  No matter the deadline, your workers’ safety is always a priority.  The fans have a similar approach, “I’m a big fan of all things soccer, but when I found out the number of deaths involved in the World Cup construction, it kind of gave me a sick feeling,” says Dylan Najarian.  Najarian has been a soccer follower all his life and knowing that many people died of carelessness to build these stadiums, took some of the joy away that he experiences when watching and analyzing soccer.  So, as great as the World Cup was this year, let’s not forget the tragic sacrifice of the creators of the stadiums that went into it.