Beautiful game exacts an ugly toll

Fifa frets over players in the extreme heat of Qatar but workers continue to toil on the stadiums

FIFA president Joseph Blatter opens the envelope to reveal that Qatar will host the 2022 World Cup at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich four years ago.

Antonia Leslie

Today in Qatar, the body count of migrant workers, dying while working, is huge and continues to rise. There are 1.4 million migrant workers who make up 94 per cent of the entire population. Those from India make up 22 per cent of the total, with a similar proportion from Pakistan. About 16 per cent are from Nepal, 13 per cent from Iran, 11 per cent from the Philippines, eight per cent from Egypt and Sri Lanka.

The remaining 6 per cent, the indigenous population, enjoy the highest GDP per capita in the world.