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When FIFA selected Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup, the petroleum-rich country used its vast and wealthy resources to begin constructing state-of-the-art stadiums and facilities utilizing millions of migrant workers. The Workers Cup follows a group of these men-from India, Kenya, Nepal, and Ghana-who, stuck in isolated camps, working arduous hours for unlivable wages, eagerly escape into a corporate-sponsored "workers welfare" soccer tournament of their own. While the tournament amounts to little more than a marketing ploy for those at the top, the laborers embrace the rare opportunity to let loose, compete, and prove themselves bona fide soccer champions. Adam Sobel's stirring and keenly observed documentary juxtaposes the freshly installed stadiums where the workers compete with the squalid and cramped corridors they return to at night. With an empathetic lens, Sobel showcases the collective willpower and humanity of men who refuse to allow trying circumstances sink their one shot at winning a tournament in the very stadiums the workers of Qatar sacrificed so much to construct.
Rating
NR
Director
Adam Sobel
Studio
Passion River Films
- Intimately captures how fantasies of opportunities don't get to square with the realities of building the huge facilities needed...Empathetic, insightful look behind.Reply
- It is remarkable to see people who can be so happy in the midst of miserable circumstances. That's the inspiring takeaway from The Workers Cup.Reply
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- A brave and engrossing look at the 2015 football tournament from the perspective of the stadium construction workers.Reply
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- What emerges is a nuanced, if somewhat undernourished, portrait of the poorest inhabitants of the richest country in the world.Reply
- The Workers Cup relates a riveting underdog tale about a quest for glory, while simultaneously probing the reality faced by the poorest people in the world's wealthiest country.Reply