Qatar tops FIFA World Cup-related Google searches. Guess who’s second…

As the FIFA World Cup has begun in full stride over the weekend, with eight exciting matches already having been played, World Cup-related searches soar in the host Gulf nation. However, the country in the second place is steeped in the most morbid irony.

As fans from all over the world have gathered at the state-of-the-art stadiums constructed across Qatar, it comes at the immense human cost of over 6,500 migrant worker’s lives. 

Since almost the entirety of this labour force originates from Indian subcontinent countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh as well as India, the fact that Nepal and Bangladesh follow in second and third spots in terms of World Cup Google searches seems only fair.

Like most Gulf countries, Qatar extended open arms to migrant workers from the Indian subcontinent - including India, Nepal and Bangladesh - under the convenient guise of providing these foreign labourers with work opportunities. The reality was different. Underpaid, overworked migrants were falling prey to the closest it could get to modern-day slavery.

With every passing matchday, every passing fixture, every passing goal celebration; it doesn’t seem like Nepal or Bangladesh has forgotten that none of this would have been possible without their country-people.