Stories of the migrants who ‘made it possible’

A journalist who created a football card-focused project to document the stories of migrant workers who lost or risked their lives to make the World Cup in Qatar possible says he "wanted to tell the stories of the people behind the statistics".

Martin Schibbye, 42, the editor-in-chief of Blankspot – a crowdfunded digital only platform for longform journalism – worked on the project called "Cards ofqatar"withateamoflocal journalists.

Around 70 football cards, designed to resemble the official Panini Fifa World Cupfootballcards,werecreated from interviews with families of migrant workers from Nepal, India and Bangladesh.

The idea for the cards was sparked by Mr Schibbye's colleague, Brit Stakston.

"She has a son who has always collecting football cards so she said, 'why don't we make cards, but instead of putting players on the cards, there should be pictures of a migrant worker and his/her story.”