“Migrant workers accuse U.S. PR firms of helping Qatar hide World Cup abuses”

A group of 106 migrant workers on Thursday sued two large American public relations firms, alleging the firms did communications work that aided a human trafficking venture that brought them to Qatar to build stadiums ahead of the 2022 World Cup.

The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, alleges that Omnicom Group, Inc. and Ogilvy Public Relations, along with several of their subsidiaries, illegally assisted in “sportswashing” the image of Qatar by working to falsely combat stories about working and living conditions of migrants, many of them from the Philippines, ahead of international soccer’s marquee showcase.

Representatives of Omnicom and Ogilvy did not immediately respond to requests for comment…

The lawsuit alleges that workers had their passports stolen so they could not leave Qatar and lived in substandard and extremely dangerous conditions. Some reports have put the number of worker deaths ahead of the Qatar World Cup in the thousands, though Qatar has disputed that number…

The lawsuit alleges Omnicom and Ogilvy worked on Qatar’s behalf to refute reporting about workers’ conditions…

A similar lawsuit was filed in 2023 against an American construction company, Jacobs Solutions, that was involved in building the World Cup stadiums…