For the first time, a football World Cup will take place in winter. In stadiums that people lost their lives to build. Sports show expert Thomas Hitzlsperger asks himself “Qatar – why?” – and searches for answers.
Saraswoti Devi Chaudhari had not heard from her husband for three weeks. Then suddenly his coffin was in front of her door.
Saraswoti Devi Chaudhari, 42 years old, lives with her two sons in a village in southern Nepal, the poorest region of the country. In the ARD documentary “Qatar – why only?” she tells Thomas Hitzlsperger, who visits her in the province of Madhesh, the story of her husband Sambhu Narayan. Like many other Nepalese workers, he traveled to Qatar to find work shortly after the World Cup was awarded. To give the family a future. He did not survive the inhuman working conditions in the desert state.
Noof Alabdulla: “Where’s the evidence for all the dead?”
Half an hour from the Qatari capital, Doha, Thomas Hitzlsperger meets Noof Alabdulla, a 37-year-old Qatari woman. A conversation about the role of women, life in Qatar, the government – and the people who died building the stadium. “We personally have never heard of a victim”she says: “So if we’ve never heard of anyone who’s died, not on the news, not in the papers – where’s the evidence for all the dead? To me, it’s fake news.”
A film full of contrasts
It is these contrasts that Thomas Hitzlsperger, former national player and sports show expert at the 2022 World Cup, experiences up close on his journey. He meets human rights activists, talks to people from the LGBTQ community, interviews national team players Ilkay Gündogan and Manuel Neuer and visits a former childhood teammate at his home club.
Sports show expert Thomas Heatlsperger with national player Ilkay Gündogan
Hitzlsperger and his team also spent months researching: What were the means by which FIFA decision-makers were persuaded to award the World Cup to Qatar in 2010?
“Qatar – why only?” is a film about double standards, about desperation, about fear – and about the love of football, which is put to the test.