What I encountered in Al-Shahaniyah outside Doha seven years ago shattered every regulation and human rights standard imaginable. Struggling laborers protested after missing wages for two, four or six months. These payments seldom topped $300 (£220) monthly inside one of the planet's wealthiest nations at that time.

They lacked food, clean water and funds to live or send home to relatives. Yet the situation grew worse because they built something for everyone: not private homes or distant roads. They erected World Cup stadiums for Messi and Ronaldo to compete in, allowing fans like me to enjoy the spectacle.

Superiors at the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, responsible for staging the 2022 Fifa World Cup Qatar, instructed me as media manager to reshape the facts slightly and align with their preferred story. That version cast us as reformers improving conditions for workers across Qatar and beyond, establishing lasting welfare rules to protect dignity and income.

They wanted a statement denying that strikers had worked on World Cup projects. I refused to place tournament optics above the rights of those laborers.

For voicing concerns, a Qatari state security prosecutor charged me with leaking defence information and plotting with foreign powers to sabotage the event, plus additional accusations. I received a conviction on a lesser corruption count and served three-and-a-half years behind bars. During that period the UN working group declared my detention arbitrary and the proceedings unfair.

Fifa declined to act in my case, overlooking it much as they overlooked the human cost and suffering tied to the 2022 Qatar World Cup while calling it the best tournament ever.

Four years later, as a new World Cup begins this week across Mexico, the US and Canada, I believed I could discuss events involving workers and myself at the Qatar event. I was mistaken. Two weeks ago authorities at Amman airport in Jordan seized my passport and intelligence officers ordered me to stop all public references to Qatar 2022, my situation or labour conditions there, or risk the same imprisonment I faced before.

I had planned to address the Oslo Freedom Forum and give evidence to a US federal court examining a human trafficking matter linked to the Qatar World Cup. Instead I found myself in an interrogation room, momentarily facing the same cell I occupied for three years.

I am Abdullah Ibhais. I hold no special influence, office or resources comparable to Fifa or a nation state. What remains is my account that the 2022 Fifa World Cup rested on the blood, sweat and tears of migrant workers.

When Fifa granted Qatar the 2022 tournament, Arabs everywhere felt pride that the sport we knew from childhood had returned home. I never anticipated witnessing such hardship among migrant workers. Their strike risked jail or expulsion without pay. Reaching that stage required utter desperation and nothing left to forfeit.

In days the World Cup returns. The previous edition cost me my freedom while this one has already taken my passport, safety and an uncertain future.

Everyone wishes to see national teams compete, some appearing for the first time such as Jordan. How can we follow the tournament without tension between affection for the sport and our core principles?

The real account of workers who built Qatar World Cup facilities must reach Fifa and the public so history does not repeat. We must tell Fifa that passion for football will not obscure the true price of these events and that we reject paying that price in the name of the game.

Abdullah Ibhais is a former media manager of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, which was responsible for organising the 2022 World Cup.

Qatar has previously stated Ibhais was jailed for soliciting bribes and not for speaking out against the Supreme Committee on labour-related matters. It said no World Cup workers were involved in the strike and that there was no attempted cover-up. Fifa has previously said it had spoken to Ibhais, but it did not comment on his jailing or his allegations. Ibhais denies soliciting bribes.