The Supreme Committee in charge of the organization of the 2022 World Cup had not accustomed us to such figures, he who estimated the number of deaths on his construction sites at 3 in all and for all. Questioned by the English journalist Piers Morgan on the TalkTV channel about the number of deaths among migrant workers on “all the construction sites linked to the World Cup”, the chairman of this Committee, Hassan Al-Thawadi, nevertheless gave a much higher figure: “The estimate is 400. Between 400 and 500, I don’t have the exact figure. »
“One death is already one death too many,” Al-Thawadi continued. It’s simple. Every year, health and safety standards have improved, at least on our worksites, the World Cup sites, to such an extent that we have representatives of German and Swiss unions who have commented on this improvement. »
Should such improvements have been made beforehand? Were the working conditions too bad to build the Qatari World Cup? “It is clear that improvements had to be made at this level, admits the chairman of the Supreme Committee. And let’s be clear, those improvements didn’t happen because of the World Cup: those are things we knew we had to do, because of our values. Whether in terms of security, housing, or reform of the kafala system. What the effect of the World Cup was that it accelerated all that. All the light put on Qatar has caused many initiatives not only from a legislative point of view but also on the application of these new laws. Today we are in a position where even our harshest critics see us as a role model in the region. »