Cup dreams
World of hope in laborers’ soccer tourney: doc
BEING a World Cup laborer in Qatar is dangerous. The mostly migrant workers building the stadiums and surrounding infrastructure for the 2022 international soccer championship toil in perilous, often lifethreatening conditions.
They live in cramped rooms in dusty, sprawling labor camps and have to sign over many of their personal rights to private companies.
According to a report from the International Trade Union Confederation, there have been about 1,200 deaths since construction began in 2010. And yet many of these men still absolutely love soccer.
In “The Workers Cup,” documentarian Adam Sobel captures the genesis of a now-annual tournament played by these laborers.
“These workers are usually portrayed as victims, or resources,” Sobel says. “We wanted to find a way to tell their story on their terms.”
Sobel spent five years working in journalism in Qatar, where construction tied to the World Cup has drawn so many migrant workers that they now make up 60 percent of the country’s population of 2.4 million. But they remain largely, and deliberately, hidden from view in what is, statistically, the world’s richest country.
“You might see them in passing on the street, on the bus, working on the side of the road,” Sobel says. “But there’s almost no chance whatsoever that you’ll have a dialogue with them.”
In “The Workers Cup,” Sobel shot at the Umm Salal labor camp, between a highway and a desert, for short stints and with limited access. He found a cross section of men who were thrilled to play on the Gulf Contracting Co. team, including: Kenneth, 21, from Ghana, who was falsely told that coming to Qatar as a laborer might mean a shot at playing pro soccer; Umesh, from India, whose two sons at home are both named after soccer players; and Paul, from Kenya, who’s a talent on the field, but just wants to fall in love.
Selected from the ranks of workers, they bond through playing and slowly advance in the tournament. “I was really drawn to the fact that there was this multiethnic team,” says Sobel, adding that the camps tend to selfsegregate into groups from their own countries. “More than anything, these guys had a zeal and a passion for the tournament.”
In following the games, Sobel’s film nods at the fact that the Workers Cup was created in part to lure new workers to Qatar. He also includes commentary from workers and middle management about abject conditions in the camp. It’s a subtle approach he says some in the film industry encouraged him to make more overt.
“Someone actually told me, ‘You just need to sprinkle in more suffering,’ ” he says. “I was like, ‘These guys already are.’ ”