The Fifa president’s guarantee that the tournament is Qatar’s to keep surrendered one of the last levers to force real change

Officials from world football’s governing body gathered in Marrakech last week in their now permanently embattled state for the latest episode in the ongoing soap opera surrounding the 2022 World Cup that will take place in the tiny gulf state of Qatar.

As Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, guaranteed once and for all there would be no revote and rolled out his repertoire of non-sequiturs, he also surrendered one of the last levers world football had left to force meaningful change for migrant workers in Qatar.

In repeating his promise to Qatar that the World Cup was going nowhere, Blatter also made a mockery of a warning earlier in the week from the German Fifa executive Theo Zwanziger, who heads a taskforce on the issue, that it could yet be taken from them if workers rights did not improve.

To the frustration of human rights groups and those who have campaigned for better protection and conditions, the momentum for fundamental reform of the kafala system that ties workers to their employers seems to be petering out.

The year began with further grim revelations of the rising death toll among migrant workers helping build infrastructure for the even but also amid genuine guarded optimism that structural change was on the way.

But 2014 has ended in frustration and claims from Amnesty that Qatar is “dragging its feet”. The Guardian’s investigations in 2013 and in-depth, shocking research by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, prompted soul searching in Qatar and outrage from the wider public.

Senior football adminstrators such as Michel Platini, who was among those who voted for Qatar as hosts in the first place, looked at the film of coffins arriving in Kathmandu and read the stories of workers trapped in hospital with no passport or money and exclaimed it the most pressing issue facing Qatar.

For a few months, the much-discussed debate about whether the World Cup should be played in winter to protect players from temperatures that regularly topped 50 degrees receded into the background as concern for those toiling in the heat day in, day out topped the agenda.

Even the ongoing questions about how Qatar won the right to host the tournament in the first place – part of a global dash for legitimacy that includes burning through billions to showcase their country through sport – faded temporarily. There was quiet confidence among human rights bodies and the more liberal Qataris who want to see change that something fundamental was about to happen as a report commissioned from international law firm DLA Piper in the wake of the Guardian’s initial stories neared publication.

But that report was never even formally published. Its 60-plus recommendations only ever saw the light of day thanks to some judicious leaking and the chaotic press conference that was supposed to accompany its unveiling in May was bereft of senior officials and prompted a mass outbreak of head-scratching.

While some welcome reforms were announced, they fell well short of abolishing the exit visa system that can leave workers trapped in Qatar without pay or fundamentally reforming the kafala system.

While the Qatari government was able to say it planned to get rid of kafala, it often forget to add that they are replacing it with something just a little less draconian. Instead of indefinitely tying workers to an employer, it will now do so for the length of their contract – which could still be up to five years.

There has been some progress. The Supreme Committee, the body overseeing the construction of the stadiums for the World Cup, is making a big noise about the reforms and standards it has introduced for workers.

This week, it released its first Workers’ Welfare Compliance Report in which it flagged up improvements to worker accommodation and new forums that bring together contractors and workers to discuss concerns.

It is clear that those with most to lose and those mostly in the spotlight recognise the need to be seen to be doing something. Other practical moves – increased numbers of inspectors, a law that requires wages to be paid electronically – will help.

But the nagging fear is that they add up to window dressing rather than the long-term commitment to structural change that will properly protect all of the 1.4 million workers fuelling a £137bn construction boom once the Fifa circus has moved on.

Meanwhile, the culture and practices of the big western construction firms and architects who have flocked to the Doha honeypot also deserve more scrutiny. Hiding behind subcontractors should no longer be an option. And just because British politicians crave the investment that the region can provide for big infrastructure projects – see the recent revelation that London mayor, Boris Johnson, tried to persuade the Qataris to plough money into Tottenham’s regeneration – that shouldn’t stop them asking tough questions over migrant labour.

Some of those close to the ground in Qatar believe that reassurances over their status as World Cup hosts will embolden the gas-rich country to make changes that could set new labour standards for the region. Others fear that without the threat of it being taken away, momentum will slow still further.

The Qatari emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, professed that he was “personally hurt about the situation” when he travelled to meet Cameron and other European leaders in September. He still has the chance to do something about it and implementing the DLA Piper report in full would be a start.