Doha
\nShafeeq 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\u2019s side salvage their World Cup on Saturday.
\nMessi\u2019s 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.
\nSaqafi and his friends bristle at European media suggestions that they are \u201cfake fans\u201d but readily acknowledge that they buy counterfeit team shirts for $3 or less, instead of the $90 which official kit costs.
\n\u201cI could not afford to have the letters printed on the back, but the shirt was something I really wanted,\u201d 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.
\nSaqafi is one of the 2.5 million foreign workers who have been the foundation of Qatar\u2019s economic miracle \u2014 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.
\nRights groups say the workers have been massively abused.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019s side salvage their World Cup on Saturday. Messi\u2019s goal in the 2-0 win over Mexico brought the biggest crowd seen at the Asian Town stadium […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-297910","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n