Qatar is still evolving as it prepares for World Cup

DOHA, QATAR — Nasser Al-Khater glances out his window across Doha Bay. The view is far different than it was eight years ago, when al-Khater served as part of the team that helped Qatar pull off a staggering upset to land the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

In the distance the bare bones of Ras Abu Aboud Stadium are being laid, perhaps the most audacious and innovative of the eight venues that will play host to the biggest tournament on the planet.

Four years out, everything appears to be on schedule, from stadium construction — including at Ras Abu Aboud, which will incorporate 1,000 shipping containers while offering a sweeping view of Doha’s skyline — to finding grass that can meet FIFA’s exacting standards while also providing a long-term benefit to the Arabian Peninsula.

Yet logistics are only a portion of Qatar’s story.

The small country of 2.7 million — only 300,000 of them actual Qatari citizens — has spent the better part of a decade grappling with the white-hot spotlight landing the World Cup provides.

The construction boom that accompanied the winning bid has been built on the backs of laborers from India, Pakistan, Nepal and other Asian nations,. As oil prices crashed below $30 a barrel in 2016, construction firms in Qatar and elsewhere in the region suffered. Some stopped paying staffers on time, if at all. Others seized workers’ passports or otherwise abused Qatar’s “kafala” system that ties expatriate workers to a single employer.

In recent months, Qatar ended a requirement for some workers to seek their employers’ permission before leaving the country. It also required contractors who bring in workers from other nations to reimburse employees for any recruitment fee they paid to an outside agency to facilitate their placement.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other activists say more needs to be done. There have been two reported deaths at Qatar’s World Cup projects.

While al-Khater, deputy-secretary general of the World Cup organizing committee, understands “this is an area we’re going to have to do a lot of work,” he points to the headway made since 2010 as proof the World Cup has made a lasting impact.

“I think we should be very proud of ourselves,” al-Khater told The Associated Press. “And I think people should take a look at everything that’s happened here in the past eight years when it comes to worker’s welfare. Look at the progress and I think it’s a case study. I believe right now in the Middle East we are basically ahead of everyone else when it comes to this.”

The questions about worker’s rights are one of many Qataris have grown accustomed to addressing. They stress they are taking great pains to answer them one by one. Do that and Qataris believe the conversation will turn away from “should Qatar be hosting the World Cup?” to “can Qatar pull it off ?”

In an era of bloat where budgets for big ticket events like the World Cup and the Olympics are calculated and then blown up, Qatar is determined to prove it can dazzle without saddling itself with hulking stadiums left unoccupied once the party ends. The majority of the venues used in the World Cup will have their capacity diminished from 40,000 to 20,000 after tournament, with the sections taken out then put up for sale. What’s left will serve as the home pitches for the local professional teams.