'Legacy, what legacy?' The fight goes on for migrant workers

Special report: The eyes of the world are no longer on Doha and, although some progress has been made, many workers feel let down as Qatar attempts to mask cracks in labour reforms

- Pete Pattisson, Nick Ames

The grass inside Lusail Stadium is lush, richly coloured. One hundred days after the World Cup final, the pitch is still watered daily and cut once a week; a team of around 30 workers are on hand to maintain the site. Empty white seats glare from stands that once housed jubilant Argentina fans; an unseasonable wind whistles under the roof that once held in their songs. The nearby boulevard, where Lionel Messi and his victorious teammates paraded into the December night, is almost empty save for groups of south Asian workers, clothes covering their heads to protect them from the sun, filling in the gaps between paving slabs with fresh cement.

There is still work to be done here even though the circus has moved on. But many of those who remain are patently at risk of exploitation and abuse despite Qatar’s attempts to mask the cracks in its partially successful labour reforms. When Qatar announced those flagship measures in August 2020, a decade after it won the right to host the World Cup, Fifa called them “groundbreaking”. The Qataris claimed they were a “major step forward”. The UN said they marked a “new era”. Even Qatar’s strongest critics gave them a cautious welcome.

The dismantling of the much-criticised kafala system – under which workers were unable to change jobs – and the introduction of a minimum wage raised hopes that, after years of criticism for the abusive conditions endured by much of its vast low-wage migrant workforce, Qatar had finally turned a corner.