Doha
Shafeeq Saqafi paid $3 for the Argentina shirt he proudly wore when he sat with 15,000 other migrant workers in a hidden corner of Doha to watch Lionel Messi’s side salvage their World Cup on Saturday.
Messi’s goal in the 2-0 win over Mexico brought the biggest crowd seen at the Asian Town stadium to their feet and Saqafi beat his chest in delight.
Saqafi and his friends bristle at European media suggestions that they are “fake fans” but readily acknowledge that they buy counterfeit team shirts for $3 or less, instead of the $90 which official kit costs.
“I could not afford to have the letters printed on the back, but the shirt was something I really wanted,” said the 32-year-old hotel worker who earns just over $400 a month and sends more than half of that back to his family in Bangladesh.
Saqafi is one of the 2.5 million foreign workers who have been the foundation of Qatar’s economic miracle — helping pump oil and gas, building its World Cup stadiums and infrastructure and staffing the dozens of new hotels that have opened in the past five years.
Rights groups say the workers have been massively abused.
