DOHA, Dec. 19: So the 2022 FIFA World Cup is finally over after 29 very intense days of football that have thrown up their share of triumph and disappointment, and perhaps things to consider for the future.
What have been the good and bad things about the World Cup from this vis
espite numerous calls for action, the 2022 World Cup is ending with no commitment from FIFA or Qatari authorities to remedy abuses, including unexplained deaths that migrant workers, many of them from Nepal and South Asia suffered to make the sport’s biggest tournament possible over the past 12 years. The final match will be played in the glittering […]
So what will make it so different?
More football each day
At 29 days from start to finish (20 November to 18 December), this will be the shortest World Cup since Argentina 1978.
That means organisers have to squeeze in four games most days during the group stages - at 10:00, 13:00, 16:00 and 19:00 GMT. Most World Cups in recent memory have had three a day.
There is also no turnaround time between the groups and the knockout stages, with the last 16 starting the day after the group stages end.
A condensed World Cup
There are only about 40 miles between the two furthest away stadiums - Al Bayt Stadium north of Doha to Al Janoub Stadium just south of the capital.
The drive takes just 50 minutes without traffic.
A tournament with a disposable stadium
Seven of the eight World Cup stadiums have been built from scratch for this tournament. Seven of the eight will have seats removed after the tournament... and Stadium 974, which is made of shipping containers, will be entirely disassembled.
Only one of the eight grounds will be the home stadium of a football team afterwards (Al Rayyan at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium).
In total about 200,000 seats will be removed from grounds (and, according to organisers, be gifted to developing countries) after the final.
A lack of places to stay
As a country that does not get near the top 100 in the world for population or size, it is perhaps no surprise that Qatar cannot offer the accommodation usually seen at a World Cup.
In March, the country had just 30,000 hotel rooms - with official figures suggesting 1.5 million people are coming.
They hope to have a total of 130,000 rooms available in the country in time for fans coming - including 9,000 beds in fans villages, big tents and metal cabins, 60,000 rooms in apartments and villas, 50,000 in hotels and 4,000 rooms in two cruise ships which will remain docked for the tournament.
The lack of rooms means some fans will have to stay in neighbouring countries such as Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and fly in for their games. Oman is offering free visas and 24 special flights a day from Muscat to Doha.
A lot of new infrastructure
Qatar has had to build a lot of infrastructure to host this tournament. As well as the stadiums, more than 100 hotels have popped up and there have been new roads and a metro built.
A new city is going to be built around the final stadium in Lusail. The budget for just stadiums and training facilities alone is £5.3bn.
Plenty of tickets sold
Despite all the issues with accommodation, 2.89 million tickets were sold at the last update in October - meaning this could be one of the best attended World Cups ever.
How much is a beer?
The price of a beer is about £10 to £15 in Qatar - although there are huge restrictions on where you can buy alcohol.
Usually, licensed hotel bars and restaurants are the only options in Qatar, although during the World Cup, fan zones and the grounds around the stadium will also sell beer.
The fan zones will reportedly charge £11.60 for 500ml of lager.
Drinking alcohol in public places (outside of these areas) can result in a prison sentence of up to six months and a fine of more than £700.
The tournament's carbon footprint
Some 3.6 million tonnes of CO2 will be omitted during the tournament. It was 2.1 million in Russia.
Criticism over deaths of migrant workers
More than 6,500 migrant workers are thought to have died in Qatar from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka alone from when the country was awarded the World Cup in 2010 to 2020, according to a Guardian investigation last year.
The Qatar government said the total was misleading, because not all the deaths recorded were of people working on World Cup-related projects.
Amnesty International says there are no exact figures because the Qatari authorities have failed to investigate the deaths of thousands of migrant workers over the past decade. (with inputs from BBC)
hree weeks ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2022, Qatar’s Labour Minister has rejected calls from human rights groups to compensate migrant workers involved in building stadiums and other infrastructure. A global campaign called #PayUpFIFA was launched by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and other activist groups in May, calling on the international football governing body FIFA to provide adequate remedy and to avoid […]
Australia has released a collective statement against Qatar's human rights record, becoming the first 2022 World Cup team to do so. The video message criticises the World Cup hosts' treatment of migrant workers and LGBTQ+ people.
APRIL 1: It is most controversial World Cup ever, with questions about the way Qatar won the right to hold it, how it's treating workers building the stadiums, and whether it is even a suitable location.
Treatment of foreign workers
Qatar is building seven stadiums for the finals, a new airport, new metro and new roads.
The final will be played in a stadium, which is also staging nine other matches, that is the centrepiece of a new city.
But the state has attracted criticism for its treatment of the 30,000 migrant labourers working on the projects.
In 2016, human rights group Amnesty International accused Qatar of using forced labour. It said many workers were living in squalid accommodation, paying huge recruitment fees and had had wages withheld and passports confiscated.
Since 2017, the government has introduced measures to protect migrant labourers from working in excessive heat, limit their working hours and improve conditions in workers' camps.
However, campaign group Human Rights Watch said in a 2021 report that foreign workers were still suffering from "punitive and illegal wage deductions", as well as "months of unpaid wages for long hours of gruelling work".
Amnesty International also says that despite the abolition of the "kafala" - or sponsorship - system, which barred migrant workers from leaving their jobs without their employer's consent, pressure was still being put on employees.
A government spokesperson told the BBC: "Significant progress to ensure the reforms are effectively enforced has been made." It said the number of rule-breaking companies "will continue to decline as enforcement measures take hold".
How many workers have died?
In February 2021, the Guardian said 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had died in Qatar since it won its World Cup bid.
The deaths, which were reported by authorities in the five Asian countries, were not categorised by occupation or place or work. But the labour rights group FairSquare said it was likely that many of those who died had been working on World Cup infrastructure projects.
Qatar's government says the figures are an overestimate, because they include thousands of foreigners who died after living and working there for many years. It says many would have been working in jobs unrelated to the building industry.
Qatar says that between 2014 and 2020, there were 37 deaths among labourers building World Cup stadiums. It says 34 of those were "non-work related".
The International Labour Organization (ILO) says Qatar has not counted sudden and unexpected deaths amongst labourers. It says these include fatal heart attacks and respiratory failure caused by heatstroke recorded as being from"natural causes" rather than "work-related".
The ILO has compiled its own death figures from government-run hospitals and ambulance services in Qatar, covering casualties from all projects connected with the World Cup.
It says 50 workers died and more than 500 others were seriously injured in Qatar in 2021 alone, and another 37,600 suffered mild to moderate injuries.
The main causes of these deaths and injuries were falling from heights, road traffic accidents and falling objects.
How did Qatar come to host the World Cup?
Qatar 2022 has been controversial from the very moment it was announced by football's world governing body, Fifa, in 2010.
As a very small (if very rich) state with little footballing history, and no record of ever qualifying for the World Cup, it was a shock to many when Qatar beat competition from the US, Australia, South Korea and Japan.
The decision prompted allegations that Fifa officials had been bribed to award the World Cup to Qatar, although an independent investigation commissioned by Fifa later found no hard evidence of this.
Qatar denies allegations that it bought delegates' votes, but a corruption investigation by the French authorities is still ongoing, and in 2020 the US accused three Fifa officials of receiving payments.
Why is the Qatar World Cup happening in winter?
The World Cup tournament is usually held in June and July, but in Qatar average temperatures at that time of year are about 41C (106F) and can reach 50C (122F) - too hot to be outside safely, let alone play at least 90 minutes of football.
During the bidding process, Qatar promised advanced air-conditioning technology that would cool stadiums, training pitches and fan zones to 23C. However, in 2015 a decision was made by Fifa to hold the tournament in winter.
The World Cup kicks off on 21 November, and the final is on 18 December. This means it falls right in the middle of - and disrupts - the club football season for many countries.
The English Premier League, for instance, will not see any matches played between 13 November and 26 December.
To make up for the lost time, the 2022/2023 season will start a week earlier than normal and end a week later.
With inputs from BBC
A study released by The Guardian in February revealed that over 6,500 migrant workers from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar in the last ten years since it received the right to host the FIFA World Cup.
KATHMANDU, Feb 25: A total of 1,641 Nepali migrant workers died in Qatar in the past one decade since Qatar speeded up the construction work to host the Football World Cup 2022.
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