ex-international
“This is total nonsense” – Ronald de Boer denies death figures in Qatar
Causes a stir with his statements about the deaths in Qatar: Ronald de Boer
© BEAUTIFUL SPORTS/Orangepictures/ / Picture Alliance
Several thousand workers are said to have died in the construction of the stadiums for the soccer World Cup in Qatar. Dutch football legend Ronald de Boer has none of this and denies any deaths in the host country. However, the 51-year-old is not entirely unbiased.
The Winter World Cup in Qatar is still being criticized about eight months before the opening. According to the British daily newspaper “Guardian”, 6,500 people died in the construction of the eight stadiums, and ZDF even reported in December last year of up to 15,000 fatalities. However, one person does not want to know anything about it: Former Dutch international Ronald de Boer denied the number of deaths in a discussion on Dutch television. “It’s really total nonsense,” said de Boer on the talk show “Jinek” on RTL when moderator Humberto Tan asked him about the subject. The death toll in Qatar over the last ten years would lump everything together and take the deaths out of context. “From the teacher to the cleaner to the construction worker. That’s the stuff these numbers are made of,” said the 51-year-old.
De Boer, who took part in the 1994 World Cup in the USA and 1998 in France with the Dutch national team, believed when asked by the moderator that the numbers were fake: “People are dying, no matter how sad, but they give you the feeling people just get crushed by the heat of the stadium.”
Ronald de Boer is World Cup ambassador in Qatar
Dutch national coach Louis van Gaal has a completely different opinion. In the previous week, the Bond coach had described the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar as “ridiculous” and explained that Fifa had only financial and commercial interests. Fifa’s talk of a development in the Arab world is “bullshit”.
However, De Boer’s opinion is not entirely unbiased. The 67-time national player ended his career in Qatar between 2004 and 2008 and then lived in the Gulf state for three more years. Last year, organizers announced that de Boer had been named World Cup ambassador. “The World Cup will be used to implement important social changes in Qatar, to promote development in the country and to create a better place for future generations,” said de Boer in June 2021 in the official press release on his role as ambassador quoted.
The World Cup kicks off on November 21 at 11 am at Al Bayt Stadium. It is not yet clear which teams will play the opening game. The groups for the World Cup will be drawn tonight from 6 p.m. You can follow the draw live at stern.de.