FIFA should pay workers injured building the Qatar World Cup, internal report says

The soccer World Cup held in Qatar in 2022 took the most popular sporting event to the Middle East for the first time. But it was trailed for years by reports of injuries, and even deaths, suffered by workers who created an entirely new country — including a subway network, hotels and a nearly a dozen modern stadiums — in preparation for the tournament.

Now, a report commissioned for FIFA, soccer’s governing body, has recommended that FIFA itself take direct responsibility for some of the injuries by compensating some workers or, for those who died, their dependents, according to two people with direct knowledge of the report.

The report offered no specific dollar amount of compensation. In the past, Amnesty International has called for at least $440 million for any compensation fund. FIFA, which has $4 billion in its reserves, has so far paid no money to anyone harmed.

“All reports and recommendations were considered during a comprehensive review by the FIFA administration and relevant bodies,” FIFA said in a statement to The New York Times on Friday before publication of this article. “While all recommendations could not be met, practical and impactful elements were retained.”

The report and its recommendations were prepared last year, and have been secretly guarded as FIFA grappled with the impact of publication. FIFA has committed to publishing it by the end of this year.

Many of the workers on the 2022 tournament were brought to Qatar from some of the world’s poorest countries. They suffered harms ranging from wage theft to injury and death from workplace accidents or the effects of working in the searing Gulf sun.

Human rights organizations have put the death toll from World Cup and related projects in the thousands. The official count by Qatari World Cup organizers was 37, and only three if just workplace accidents are counted.

The Times in 2022, citing official data, reported that at least 2,100 Nepalis died in Qatar in the 12 years between FIFA awarding it hosting rights and the start of the tournament. Many more were injured, and had exchanged a lifetime of savings, or become heavily indebted, just for the right to work in Qatar.