BRUSSELS, Belgium — After years playing soccer in Switzerland, Malaysia and the lower echelons of the French league, Zahir Belounis’ career seemed headed to a lucrative high when he signed up to play for the Eljaish club in Qatar.

Life in the gas-rich Gulf emirate, however, soon turned sour for the French striker.

“I’m ruined,” the player says. “I’m at the end of my career and I thought I’d be able to put a little money aside. Instead I’ve nothing left. My life is a disaster.”

Belounis says his salary has been withheld for almost two years, he’s prevented from playing and being held as a virtual prisoner in Qatar as the club refuses to grant the authorization he needs to leave the country.

For international labor unions, Belounis case is one among thousands involving abuse of the migrant workers who make up 8 out of 10 of Qatar’s 1.5 million population.

As a soccer player though, his story has a particular resonance as Qatar prepares to become the first Middle East nations to host the game’s showcase event, the World Cup.

In preparation for the 2022 World Cup, Qatar is launching a $150 billion construction program to build 12 state-of-the-art stadiums, 90,000 additional hotel rooms, a subway system, national rail network and other infrastructure needed for the event.

An expected 1 million new migrants are expected to flock to the country to take part in the construction boom.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is warning that poor safety standards and labor laws that severely restrict migrants’ rights mean Qatar is unfit to hold the World Cup, unless it takes drastic action to improve the situation.

The confederation, which groups 315 affiliated unions from 156 countries, has launched a campaign to persuade world soccer’s governing body FIFA to re-run the vote that awarded Qatar the World Cup.

“This is not a government who respects human rights or trade union rights,” says Sharan Burrow, secretary general of the ITUC. “Migrants are not only enslaved in terms of having no freedom of movement or freedom of employment, but they are forced to live in squalor and forced to work unsafe hours in unsafe conditions.”

High on the unions’ list of complaints is the so-called kafala system, which is used in Qatar and other wealthy gulf states to recruit migrant labor.

Under the system, workers are tied to the employer who recruits them and effectively prevented from changing jobs or from leaving the country, without their bosses’ permission.

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