That’s only the latest accusation of Qatari bribery. Soccer officials around the world seem to have found their bank accounts stuffed with millions. Whistle-blowers keep stepping forward to detail the schemes; investigative reporters keep churning out documentation to show the circuitous routes traveled by huge sums of money.

There were good reasons to be skeptical of a Qatari World Cup, aside from the screamingly illiberal nature of the host regime. (FIFA’s entanglements with authoritarianism are nothing new and worthy of a door-stopping history.) World Cups are played in the summer, and summers in Qatar are a pizza oven—with temperatures that spike at about 122 degrees, a physical hazard both for players and for the workers needed to build the stadiums.

To accommodate this unsparing climate, the tournament will likely be played in November and December, right in the middle of the European football season. As a fan, I can’t stand this disruption of the calendar and rubbishing of tradition. But those are trivial quibbles, compared with workers who aren’t given the same exemption from the brutal heat. To fill the labor demands, the Qataris have imported workers, largely from Asia.

Human-rights organizations have alleged that these workers have been scammed—paying a hefty fee to agents who bring them to Qatar, and then receiving lower wages than promised when they arrive. Nepal’s ambassador to Qatar has described the nation as an “open jail” for workers from her nation. The International Trade Union Confederation has described these workers as “basically slaves.” When the ITUC produced a report on Qatar, it predicted that four thousand laborers would die in the course of erecting the facilities for the tournament. A representative of the organization has grimly quipped, “If we were to hold a minute of silence for every estimated death of a migrant worker due to the constructions of the Qatar World Cup, the first 44 matches of the tournament would be played in silence.”

It’s instructive to contrast this glorious past month with what’s expected to unfold three years from now. Where this Women’s World Cup has turned lesbian players into legends, Qatar considers homosexuality a crime worthy of three years in prison or even punishable by death. When asked how this might affect gay fans, FIFA’s former head Sepp Blatter was characteristically unconcerned with matters of morality: “I would say they should refrain from any sexual activities.”

While the world spends extravagantly on the festival of corruption and death, it continues its woeful treatment of women’s soccer. The United States boasts the best-financed women’s soccer team in the world, yet its players are still paid a fraction of what male players earn. They are too often forced to play on artificial-turf fields that afflict players like Megan Rapinoe with pointless career-altering injuries.