Qatar

Three teenagers worked as security guards on World Cup venues throughout the tournament. But were never paid by their employer, Stark Security Services, a company that is owned by persons with close ties to the ruling family and who stand accused of funding Al Qaeda terrorists.

With the promise of paying jobs, the families of David and Paul sold their properties to fund their travel to Qatar. They worked as security guards at a World Cup stadium. The Fifa World Cup subcontractor Stark Security never paid them. They had to sleep rough.

Mohamed works as a security guard at a World Cup stadium. He has not been able to sleep for days – the stress and the anxiety getting to him. He wants to return to Dhaka as soon as possible.

In the shadow of the vast gold-clad bowl Lusail stadium, the World Cup’s 1 billion-dollar centrepiece venue resembling the ark of Noah, Joseph sums up his existence, his fate tied to that of the World Cup: “No one sees us.”

They haven’t been paid salaries for the last two months. Meet two African security guards that work for a company that has several Fifa and World Cup assignments during the tournament in Qatar.

According to Fifa, Qatar 2022 is to be the ‘greenest of all World Cups’. But independent reports show that far from being the first carbon-neutral global sports competition in sports history, as promised by Fifa president Gianni Infantino, the forthcoming World Cup will be the dirtiest ever staged.

Politicians, leading academics and international trade unions have praised Qatar for its reforms since they were given the hosting rights to the 2022 World Cup in 2010, following a corrupt process. But how are things really on the ground?

A company directly and heavily involved with the World Cup in Qatar, with thousands of employees, is blackmailing its workers.

How a whistleblower exposed the dark truth of Qatar’s World Cup.

In November two NRK journalists in Qatar were arrested for trespassing. But was that a diversion to hide the real reason: to prevent the publication of an interview NRK did with Head of Qatar 2022’s Supreme Committee Hassan Al-Thawadi about Abdullah Ibhais just prior to their arrest?