History Repeating Itself Saudi Arabia's World Cup Bid Gains Pace - But At What Cost?

On 13 December, two years will have passed since John Njau Kibue died.

- Nick Ames

The circumstances have not been made public but what we know beyond doubt is this: the 24-year-old security guard fell from the uppermost concourse at Lusail Stadium three days previously, about two hours after the World Cup quarter-final between Argentina and the Netherlands had finished.

On went the show. Hours after Kibue died, Argentina were back at Lusail to face Croatia, thousands of supporters unwittingly walking close to the spot where Kibue landed. Five days after that, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé treated the same venue to the greatest final. Few of those basking in the post-match fireworks or goggling at Salt Bae's effrontery would have brought Kibue to mind.

Kibue's sister said he had been working long hours, a fact later corroborated to the Guardian by colleagues. His funeral, back home in Kenya, took place on New Year's Eve; it was streamed online and has been watched more than 3,500 times. The faces of relatives and friends paying their final respects to his body convey the agony of their loss; a short eulogy later encapsulated the richness this young man had imparted on his loved ones and his community.

We may never know exactly how many migrant workers died on stadium and infrastructure projects that served Qatar 2022. This newspaper's own figures show that at least 6,751 people from a handful of Asian countries died in the country between 2010 and 2020. Statistics from African embassies, such as Kenya's, have been harder to acquire. It is the grimmest of numbers games that thousands of people simply could not win.

Here is another number: 21,000. It is the total of Nepali, Bangladeshi and Indian workers reported to have died in Saudi Arabia since its Vision 2030 plan was launched in April 2016. That was just one revelation from an ITV documentary, screened last night.