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# Zaha Hadid Qatar World Cup Stadium Laborers Paid a Pittance
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/zaha-hadid-qatar-world-cup-stadium-laborers-paid-a-pittance/
- Published: 2014-07-30T22:56:22.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:16:46.000Z
- Description: A Guardian investigation has found that migrant workers building architect Zaha Hadid's World Cup stadium in Qatar are being paid at a level beneath what's mandated by World Cup regulations.
- Author: Mostafa Heddaya
- Tags: In Brief, Qatar, World Cup, Zaha Hadid, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:03 (2014, 2015, part 1)

![alwakrah_main](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/07/alwakrah_main.jpg)

Rendering of Al Wakrah Stadium, Qatar, designed by Zaha Hadid with Patrik Schumacher (image courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects)

A *Guardian* investigation has [found](http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jul/29/qatar-world-cup-stadium-workers-earn-45p-hour?ref=hyperallergic.com) that migrant workers building architect Zaha Hadid’s World Cup stadium in Qatar are being paid at a level beneath what’s mandated by World Cup regulations. The salaries, which vary by worker but dropped to an hourly rate as low as £0.45 (\~$0.76) in overtime pay, were joined by other abuses of local and international labor law, including the withholding of passports and wages by employers. The monarchy is reportedly spending £134 billion (\~$227 billion) on infrastructure for the World Cup, which it is hosting in 2022.

Though reporters from the *Guardian* were shown a “model” worker accommodation facility by World Cup officials — one not unlike the Saadiyat Accommodation Village in Abu Dhabi [criticized as a cosmetic measure](https://hyperallergic.com/gulf-labor-monitoring-report-finds-ongoing-labor-violations-at-guggenheim-abu-dhabi/) by Gulf Labor monitors in May — their weeklong investigation turned up myriad abuses:

> Pay slips show they are toiling up to 30 days a month for as little as £4.90 a day. The rates are among the lowest the Guardian found during a week-long investigation into conditions for migrant labourers across Qatar’s construction industry, and come despite pledges by the tournament’s organisers to make workers’ rights “our top priority”.

In a statement to the *Guardian*, Hadid and Aecom, a partner design firm, said they were “working closely with \[their\] clients to ensure that any outstanding issues are resolved.”

As Hyperallergic’s Hrag Vartanian has [previously noted](https://hyperallergic.com/zaha-hadid-is-an-awful-human-being-says-not-my-duty-to-prevent-migrant-worker-deaths/), Hadid came under fire earlier this year for telling the *Guardian* that labor conditions were not her “duty.”