I'll be the first to tell you that I don't know a ton about soccer. Just like hockey the whole off sides thing throws me every time I go to see my niece play. I don't watch a ton of soccer on TV, but occasionally when I am surfing through the channels I will stop on a game.
I do enjoy the World Cup. I try to watch some of the games when it comes around. I don't hate soccer, I just find it relatively boring. I know that a lot of people think baseball is a slow game, but in certain circumstances I think soccer takes the prize.
There was an old Simpson's segment that perfectly captures my sentiments about the pace of play in the game. That's not what this post is about though.
I remember when I was a kid the World Cup came to Detroit Michigan. More specifically Auburn Hills/Pontiac at the Silverdome. It is actually pretty sad to drive by the Silverdome these days and see the state of disrepair it is in. At one point it was the largest domed stadium in the world I think.
As I said, last I knew it was still standing and that is really the reason I am writing this post.
I saw this article on Yahoo and I felt I needed to give it some space here on Sportstalk.
Don't get me wrong, I am not naïve enough to think that something the mainstream media puts out is 100% accurate, but like many things, if even 1% of this is true, it should be a big deal to a lot of people.
So here is the deal, Qatar gets awarded the World Cup in 2010. They need facilities to handle all of the people that are going to be coming to their territory for the matches in 2022, so they start building. Much like we have seen with the Olympic villages that seemingly pop up out of nowhere they are building structures in Qatar.
The problem, nearly 6500 plus workers have died in the building of these structures and facilities. Even worse than that, the majority of the workers are not from Qatar. They are immigrants from countries like India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.
You can see it in the article that equates to about 12 deaths per week since they started working.
That is just nuts to me. They actually think the death toll is much higher, they just don't have the exact facts and figures to support it.
Unfortunately, I am guessing due to Covid restrictions, many of the workers can't just go home and find different work. They are stuck inside the country and basically being forced to work.
Oh yeah, did I mention they are actually "building a city from the ground up", and the temps during the day can reach 120 degrees +?
This is crazy to me. Is a single sporting event worth the cost in human life?
I guess that is a decision you need to make for yourself...