According to the Guardian, six and a half thousand workers have died. Often on the failure of important organs after a day’s work in the hot sun, without breaks and without the opportunity to hide in the shade. The organizers defend that the working conditions have been improved by legal regulations.
“Many of them continue to be robbed of their wages, and it is still very difficult for them (workers) to enforce justice. And then, of course, there is the problem of the unexplained death of hundreds of them, “reveals the problems of May Romanos from the non-profit organization Amnesty International.
Players from Norway and Germany wore protest T-shirts during qualifying matches due to poor working conditions in Qatar. The English footballers will meet again with Amnesty International next month and then decide what position they will take.
The football turf grows in forty degrees
In addition, it is difficult for the land of the subtropical belt to grow a lush turf for football pitches. It is grown, for example, on a farm in the middle of the desert, where the temperature does not fall below forty degrees Celsius for most of the year. The field is located near the capital Doha. It only takes eight hours to harvest the green carpet, transport it on trucks and lay it on the playing field.
The Sudanese man who has been in charge of the project since 2007 is rightly proud of that. “Weather conditions and climate, together with the quality criteria we have set, make it extremely difficult to obtain the desired product. But we have succeeded, “says Haitam al-Sharif.
The question is at what price. Qatar imports one hundred and forty tons of grass seeds from the United States each year in specially air-conditioned aircraft. Stadiums are irrigated with desalinated seawater during an energy-intensive process. In summer, each playground consumes fifty thousand liters of moisture per day.
Already in September, a winter variety of grass is planted and, in order to survive, it is artificially cooled by freezing air. “Our goal is not to change the lawn during the championship and not have to change it even after it is over,” explains Mohamed al-Atwán, a former 974 stadium project manager.
The organizers of the championship did not disclose the exact price for the care of football. But overall, Qatar has invested billions of dollars in building infrastructure over the past decade.
