Worker killed at Saudi side’s training base

Qatar is investigating the death of a migrant worker reportedly killed while doing repairs at a resort that had served as the Saudi team’s training base during the World Cup.

Nasser Al Khater, the head of Qatar’s World Cup organising committee said: “Right now, it’s still under investigation and what happened and how it occurred.

‘‘And obviously, it’s something that we feel very sad about.”

The worker was a Filipino man who was fixing lights at Sealine Beach resort, a compound of villas, United State’s sports website The Athletic reported.

It said he slipped off a ramp while walking alongside a forklift and fell headfirst against concrete. The compound served as the training base for the Saudi team, before its elimination during the group stage.

Qatar has come under heavy scrutiny over conditions for migrant workers who have done the labour in the country’s massive building campaign for the World Cup, including $312.5 billion worth of stadiums, metro lines and other infrastructure.

Last week, a senior official in Qatar’s World Cup organisation, Hassan al-thawadi, put the number of worker deaths during construction for the tournament “between 400 and 500,” a drastically higher number than any other previously offered by Doha.

The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, in which althawadi is the secretary general, later said he was referring to figures of work-related deaths from 2014-2020 nationwide, not specifically for the World Cup.

Al Khater, the chief executive officer of Qatar 2022, said construction worker deaths in Qatar were proportional to those in other countries.