Inside a cricket stadium on the outskirts of Doha, hundreds of men gather together. It is a funfair layout with food and drink stands, 5-a-side football pitches and volleyball courts. A big screen broadcasts the FIFA World Cup matches, while half-time means a performance by Indian dancers.
Welcome to the “Industrial Fan Zone”, located in Asian Town, which is essentially Qatar’s mall for migrants. Qatar has a population of about 2.9 million people, the majority of which are made up of low-paid migrant workers or foreigners. Qatari nationals number only 380,000. Asian Town is a shopping and entertainment complex close to “Labour City”, which opened in 2015 and accommodates close to 70,000 migrant workers who assisted the construction projects that were critical to the state’s World Cup.
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In this area of Doha, hundreds of thousands of workers are housed. Yet despite their essential role in creating this World Cup, many of the fan zones populated by travelling fans in the centre of the city are out-of-bounds for the workers. This is because access requires a Hayya card, for which registration depends upon possession of match tickets.
Many of the workers spoken to by The Athletic said they could not afford to buy tickets for matches in Qatar, despite the significant number of empty seats visible at games. There were a small number of tickets available for Qatar residents at a cost of only 40 Qatari riyals ($11 USD) in the ballot but these had proven elusive for many workers. The higher brackets, with tickets rising to 800 riyals, were out of reach for the majority.
Migrant workers have helped build Qatar's World Cup from scratch – but some are earning just £227 a month and sleep in dorms with up to 12 people.@AdamCrafton_ visited the 'mall for migrants' and a very different side to Doha's opulence… pic.twitter.com/eTcJdMV5pX
— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) November 30, 2022
At first glance, the Industrial Fan Zone is an uplifting sight. Men from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Kenya and Uganda co-exist harmoniously, enjoying ball games, chatting away and taking refuge from the daily grind. FIFA’s branding is present on signs and one message, written in English, Arabic and Hindi, reads: “Thanks for your contributions for delivering the best FIFA World Cup ever.”
Yet peel away the glossy sheen and a more troubling picture emerges. A group of Kenyan workers tell how they left their country behind with the promise of greater opportunities in Qatar. They ask not to be named so as not to risk their employment in the country. One shows me his contract on a document on his mobile phone. “We receive 1000 Qatari riyals ($275, £227) per month, as well as a food allowance of 300 rials ($82) per month.” The food allowance is essentially taken away as soon as it comes in as the workers eat at a facility close to where they sleep.
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Dormitories (included with their job offer) house four men in each room — sleeping on bunk beds — but a Ugandan worker said there are other dormitories that sleep as many as 12 men in the same room. Other four-men rooms, they show in pictures, have a low mattress in each corner, with each worker afforded one tall cupboard.
The salary for these Kenyans, if spread over 12 months, comes to around £2,725 or $3,295 annually. A Kenyan worker told The Athletic he had paid a Kenyan recruitment agency 100,000 Kenyan Shilling ($818 or £676) to secure his place in Qatar but the agency had told him he would earn twice the figure he now receives per month. He is here to work on security during the World Cup for three months, before then committing to work a further two years for the international security company employing the workers in Qatar.
“There is nothing I can do about it,” he says, lowering his voice. “Many of us arrive here with an immediate debt because we borrow money to have the opportunity. I am completely powerless in this situation. If I complain, I fear losing my job. But really, I need more money because I am here to make a better life for my family. I try to send money home to my siblings in Kenya, but it leaves me with almost nothing to live off.”
He, like several others The Athletic speaks to, asks about life in England and bemoans just how difficult it is to secure a visa to gain access to a country which he paints as an imagined island of milk and honey. They ask to stay in touch to hear more information about England. They ask what they can do to gain residency, whether they need a sponsor and joke about who they might need to marry.
This part of Doha, located around a 25-minute drive outside the centre, is a very different demographic to the Doha to which travelling supporters became accustomed during the first week of the World Cup in the city centre. There are very few Qataris in this neck of the woods and very few men in Qatari thobes wandering around. There are, also, almost no women in sight because the labourers are male and this zone is almost exclusively made up of migrant workers. Not everybody attending is low-paid. A few IT technicians from India who live in Qatar say they have attended matches during this World Cup and say they like to spend time with the Indian diaspora in this area.
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The Qatari organisers of this World Cup would likely argue that an industrial fan zone is a pleasant gesture for the workers who have sacrificed so much to produce this tournament. And that is to only speak those who have survived, with the number of deaths a matter of contestation between rights groups and the state of Qatar.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino told the European Parliament this year that only three migrant workers died in the building of the World Cup stadiums in Qatar — based on numbers supplied by Qatar. Yet Nicholas McGeehan of human rights organisation FairSquare previously called that figure a “wilful attempt to mislead” as the eight stadiums only account for about one per cent of World Cup-related construction.
Human Rights Watch has said the correct number will never be known because “Qatari authorities have failed to investigate the causes of deaths of thousands of migrant workers, many of which are attributed to ‘natural causes’.” Nepal’s labour ministry alone says 2,100 of its citizens have died in Qatar of all causes since 2010, the year this World Cup was initially awarded.
As Saudi Arabia’s fixture against Poland begins, the venue becomes busier. While the fan zones in the city centre attract media attention, there are very few journalists present here and a very small number of FIFA employees. There are some guest liaison officers, such as Patrick from Uganda, who is a qualified teacher but finds himself shepherding migrant workers in and out of the venue.
The least generous interpretation of this event is that it demonstrates a form of segregation, where low-paid workers, almost entirely of South Asian or African descent are kept away from Qatar’s main event elsewhere. It would be wrong to characterise the ill-treatment of migrant workers as an issue unique to Qatar. One Ugandan worker, for example, says he is on a WhatsApp group with compatriots spread across the Gulf region, in countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and that similar issues occur there. While we talk, one friend of his from Uganda writes in, asking for advice about taking a job at a company based in Qatar. He writes back, to say he has heard out here that this company does not always comply with labour laws introduced by the Qatari state in recent years, meaning payments to workers have sometimes been even lower than the minimum monthly wage of 1000 riyals. He explains that for some, the desperation of life back home in their own countries is such that they will take the reduced salary anyway.
At the fan zone, another Ugandan worker, who is 30 years old, chats about football. He says England is his team because he loves Manchester City. We agree Phil Foden should have started the match. He has a daughter, aged 8, who he sends money home to every month. He has dreams and aspirations. He wants to study finance and accounting but the need to earn money in the short-term for his family has always taken precedence. He has lived in Doha for three years. He still shares a room with three other men. His salary (also 1000 riyals) is a struggle. He explains his lodgings have no refrigerator and that the on-site supermarket is expensive, so even attempts to cut costs are complicated. The meals that are afforded, as part of his monthly food allowance, are, he laments, often very hot.
“I can do some spicy but not every day,” he says. “Sometimes, with the regimented rooms, entertainment, food and work, life feels a little bit like how I imagine a prison.” Not everyone, it should be said, is this despondent. A Kenyan man who arrived more recently says he is grateful for the additional security training he has received since beginning work in Qatar, which he believes will enhance his future opportunities.
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I ask the Ugandan man if he sees a future in Qatar much beyond the World Cup. “I hope not,” he says, also hushing his voice. “There is no opportunity for progress here. It has not felt to me that there are opportunities to progress, because the good jobs are prioritised for the Qatari nationals.”
He laughs wryly, too, that his romantic life is not up to much because he is surrounded by male workers and he says he is worried about offending Qatari women by approaching them. “And I don’t think the foreign tourists are attracted by a poor man like me,” he says.
He smiles, before trudging away, out of the fan zone, back to the dormitory, ready for another week of work.
(Top image: Adam Crafton)