Timed to coincide with last week’s FIFA Congress and World Cup draw, it took place in the Crowne Plaza Doha’s Business Park, one of the many glass-fronted towers migrant workers have built in Qatar’s capital over the last couple of decades. The Migrant Workers’ Cup was the finale to a two-day conference on workers’ rights put on by BWI. But first, some football.Įxcept, of course, we can never just get straight to the football in Qatar.
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So, if Friday’s draw did anything for you at all, you are going to have to accept this is Qatar’s show and it wants to tell its story. But the World Cup is going to be played in Qatar this winter and the Qataris are done with being apologetic about it.
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Where you land on that spectrum will probably depend on how you feel about the whole idea of a World Cup being played in a country like Qatar - small, hot, rich, autocratic - and that is absolutely your right. On the face of it, they have absolutely nothing in common apart from their venue, but they are linked in ways that some will find worrying and others encouraging. This is a story about those two tournaments and the even bigger one to come. Marcelo did not play in this one, either, but give him a few years and he will almost certainly get the invite, as it was organised by FIFA, had a huge budget and involved a cast of hundreds. Twenty-four hours later, there was another football tournament played in Doha. A ball, a pitch, dozens of smiling faces. They provided the T-shirts, the trophies and the chicken and rice we tucked into with our fingers once the inevitable penalty shootout had concluded.įor nearly three hours, only football mattered. The tournament, which featured four teams comprised of migrant workers, trade unionists and a journalist, was organised by Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI), a federation of construction unions, and FIFPro, the global footballers’ union. She played left-back for the winning team in the inaugural edition of the Migrant Workers’ Cup in Doha last week and The Athletic’s representative can vouch for her nickname: he lined up against her. No, this ‘Marcelo’ is a Kenyan guest worker in Qatar. This Marcelo is not the Real Madrid left-back and captain, the 33-year-old Brazilian who has won four Champions League titles and been named to the Dream Team at the last two World Cups. “OK, the best player award for tonight goes to… Marcelo!” “Can anyone guess who it is? What do we think? A lady or a gentleman? A lady? Really? Are you sure? Also other people of the lgbt+ community comes and some non-gay people too but it's a minority which is lovely in my opinion lol.“And now, the award for the best player,” the organiser of the tournament says, clutching a plastic trophy that looks a bit like the World Cup. Also if you meet a guy here and he lives here you are bound to see him again on the same Saturday night, just start becoming a regular. It's really different from the gay club scene here in Memphis, and I love that about this place. Most intellectual and college student guys come here as well. This is a small bar/lounging place, if you are a gay male looking to find a guy or guy to talk to kind of just like you, this is the place to get noticed at. You have the regulars that mostly sit in the back lounge at the bar just watching a storm up on the televisions. Truthfully speaking the average ages would be middle aged men, telling the truth. Of course I'm a 22 yr old young adult of right now, I'm the little few of the young ones that come into this establishment. So it's pretty re-assuring that you can be you and try to flirt or talk to a guy without being judged if you like. Most of the customers that come in that I stand side by side with in the same place are always male. Honestly this is the most gay male space I have ever been into.
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Good to have private conversations, flirt, and get to really know a guy. It has a tall fence in the back with a tall tree house you can go up in with the stairs on the side of it. I see workers as workers and they just need a simple easy night tonight, ya know? The place looks great, it has a back lounge and a little backyard area. If I walked in I'm sure the guys would know me by face but don't really know me.