“The estimate is around 400, between 400 and 500. I don’t have the exact number,” Hassan al-Thawadi said in an interview with Piers Morgan for the British TV channel “Talk TV”.
The organizing committee pointed out on Tuesday afternoon that al-Thawadi’s statement refers to national statistics for all work-related deaths nationwide in Qatar, for all sectors and nationalities, for the period 2014-2020. That number is 414.
Morgan had asked: “Do you know how many people have died in construction work related to the World Cup in Qatar in the last 12 years since you were awarded the contract? In other words: new hotels, new bridges, what anyway. What is the realistic total number of migrant workers who died as a result of work for the soccer World Cup?”
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 spoke of more than 6,500 dead workers from five Asian countries on the emirate’s construction sites in the past ten years. Qatar had always rejected these figures.
In the conversation, Hassan al-Thawadi again 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.
