Unable to go to the stadiums they helped build, hundreds of migrant workers gather in a cricket stadium in the desert outside Doha to celebrate the beautiful game
It has the big screen, the pumping music and the Fifa branding, but this is a fan zone with a difference. There are no visiting supporters, no women, no team colours and certainly no beer. The clue is in the venue: a cricket stadium on the edge of Doha. Inside, thousands of mostly south Asian low-wage labourers, fill the stands or sit cross-legged on the grassy outfield.
It is a world away from the polished face of Doha that most fans will see. The stadium fan zone is within Asian Town, a shopping and entertainment complex purpose-built for Qatar’s migrant workers about 30 minutes by car from the city centre. A vast expanse of warehouses, workshops and accommodation blocks stretches out for miles on one side, housing hundreds of thousands of workers, often in grim, crowded dorms.
