CONSTRUCTION workers building Saudi Arabia’s 11 new stadiums for the World Cup have been dying heinous deaths – from decapitations to death plunges.
groups have warned of a terrifying “surge”;; in the deaths of migrant construction workers in the Middle Eastern region as it
After being confirmed as the host of the 2034 men’s World Cup in December, is throwing tens of billions of pounds at insane building projects – including an entire mega-city.
In preparation, the Saudis unveiled plans to– 11 of which will be.
Despite the Cup being nine years away, labourers working to build the sites are dying in horrific yet preventable incidents, reports from Human Rights Watch and Fairsquare claim.
It comes just a day after the President of visited alongside US President as the pair attended a US-Saudi investment forum.
Human Rights Watch were able to speak to the hearbroken families of 31 workers from Bangaldesh, and Nepal.
Their relatives either fell from heights at the sites, were crushed or decapitated by heavy machinery – or electrocuted.
But Saudi medical authorities rarely conduct autopsies to establish the exact cause of migrant workers’ deaths, FairSquare claims.
A couple of months ago a Pakistani foreman, Muhammad Arshad, was reported to have plunged from a construction site at a stadium under construction in the eastern city of Al Khobar.
Muhammad’s tragic death marked the first related to the World Cup – with many more to follow.
One widow of a 46-year-old Bangladeshi man who was working in Saudi Arabia told Human Rights Watch of her husband being harrowingly decapitated in the workplace.
She said: “According to his colleagues and the foreman, he noticed a mechanical issue with the machine he was operating.
“He turned off the machine to fix it and was trying to remove a stone that was stuck inside when someone accidentally turned the machine back on. His head got caught inside, and he died on the spot.”;;
The grieving woman added that when her husband’s body arrived in Bangladesh, “his head was separated from his body”;; which resulted in her losing consciousness “seeing him in that state”;;.
And another widow of a 25-year-old Nepali man revealed that despite her husband getting electrocuted at work, his death “is officially classified as a natural death”;;.
She added: “We did not receive the dead body of my husband, but were instead informed that his last rites were already done in Saudi Arabia itself without our permission. This has put us in further pain.
“We believe all this was an elaborate plan to deprive us of compensation. There are so many questions unanswered.
“Who gave them permission to bury [my husband] instead of repatriating [his] body? Witnesses say that the death was caused by electrocution.”;;
With many deaths of workers wrongly classified as being natural, grieving families have received no compensation, the reports claim.
Human Rights Watch’s director of Global Initiatives Minky Worden said: “The 2034 Saudi World Cup will be the largest and most expensive ever, but it could also have the highest cost in human lives, as millions of migrant workers build infrastructure, including 11 new stadiums, a rail and transit network, and 185,000 hotel rooms.”;;
FIFA says it has a “steadfast commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights in the context of its operations”;;.
In 2024, the Saudi government defended that there had been “tangible achievements”;; in occupational health and safety, claiming that the rates of deaths and injuries among workers were falling.
And FIFA praised the alleged “significant steps”;; taken by Saudi Arabia to improve its labour laws since 2018.
But the global construction worker’s union, or BWI, revealed there had been an “alarming rise”;; in accidents that could have been prevented.
BWI General Secretary Ambet Yuson said: “These are the result of systematic negligence, corruption and inadequate oversight and accountability.”;;
And FairSquare’s co-director James Lynch has described FIFA’s human rights policies as a “sham”;;.
He added: “While FIFA praises Saudi Arabia to the rafters and highly-paid western law firms generate vast profits for curating Saudi’s reputation, children in places like Nepal grow up without their fathers and never even learn how they died.”;;
FIFA told Human Rights Watch of its plans to establish a workers’ welfare system to ensure mandatory standards and enforcement mechanisms are dedicated for construction related to the World Cup. as well as service delivery in Saudi Arabia.
Football’s global governing body said: “We are convinced that the measures implemented to ensure construction companies respect the rights of their workers on FIFA World Cup sites can set a new standard for worker protection in the country and contribute to the wider labour reform process, helping to enhance protections for workers on World Cup sites and beyond.”;;
But Human Rights Watch has slammed FIFA, saying no further details were given on how the so-called welfare system would actually work.
The group said: “Saudi authorities, FIFA, and other employers should ensure that all migrant worker deaths, regardless of perceived cause, time, and place are properly investigated and that families of deceased workers are treated with dignity and receive fair and timely compensation.”;;
Eight stadiums are being built in the capital Riyadh, four in Jeddah, and one in each of Al Khobar, Abha, and Neom.
Neom is thethe county is planning to build from scratch – and half of which will be floating in the ocean.
There have been concerns, however, that
They are also promising to, King Fahd International Airport, which is due to open in 2030.
