One person died in the accommodation of the Saudi Arabian national team.
The Athletic reports that one guest worker died accidentally at the Sealine Beach luxury resort on the shores of the Persian Gulf, where the Saudi Arabian national team stayed during the World Cup.
The dead man is a Filipino man in his forties, called Alex at the construction site, who worked for the Qatari company Salem Petroleum. The man was doing repair work when he fell off the truck and hit the asphalt head first. A helicopter was flown to the scene for hospital transport, but nothing could be done to save the man.
Secretive
There is a hint of a cover-up over the accident, as the incident has been confirmed to Athletic from several different sources, but has not been officially announced. According to the website, speculation began to circulate about the man’s fate, because the hotel’s staff were also kept in the dark about what the consequences of the construction site accident had been.
Accreditation by Fifa was required for the Sealine Beach resort during the stay in Saudi Arabia. Now, however, the incident is under investigation by the Qatari authorities, because according to Athletic, the local organizer of the World Cup tournament says that the accident happened on a public road located in the Resort area.
Dark background
Over the years, human rights organizations have reported that the construction work of the World Cup in Qatar and related deficiencies have claimed the lives of several thousand foreign workers. However, local official estimates are clearly more moderate.
Fifa has made health care and occupational safety of employees in Qatar a key goal.
Illustration image.
PDO