Analysis - Does Qatar have a realistic chance of landing the 2022 FIFA World Cup?

(WFI) Dismissed beforehand by Sir Alex Ferguson as a “thorn in the flesh” and an “intrusion” in an “unknown country” – a description that particularly rankled with the Qataris – England’s friendly with Brazil in Doha on Saturday was considered to be a nothing game by the country’s supporters back home. 

Yet the Qatari hosts, eager to show the world their potential as a prospective 2022 World Cup host nation, truly made it into something.

Lively fanzones infused with the sound of samba and the Bootleg Beatles preceded the game. Twenty minutes from kick-off inside the Khalifa Stadium, the lights cut out and the night was illuminated by tens of thousands of fluorescent glow sticks handed out to fans before the match.

A spectacular light show in the atmospheric stadium reached its conclusion several minutes later with hundreds of children running onto the darkened pitch with glow sticks in the colors of the 2022 bid branding.

Unfortunately, an injury depleted England team were neither up to Brazilian or Qatari standards of showmanship and were lucky to get away with a 1-0 defeat, following a pallid performance. The real winners, however, were the hosts. Qatar, vying to host the 2022 World Cup Finals, had made their point: that they are ready and able to host a sporting event to a world-class standard.

Qatar’s hopes for a sporting legacy
Touring Doha a day earlier, the jetlag and fatigue of an overnight flight washed away by the brilliant light, I was soon struck by the magnificent way in which Qatar’s rulers have taken sport to their hearts.

At the centre of Doha stands its Olympic HQ, a 27-storey building bedecked in the omnipresent branding of its World Cup bid and with one floor devoted to each of its Olympic sports. At the very top of the skyscraper is located its 2022 bid team.

We toured the Aspire Zone, a “sporting city” at the center of which stands the 50,000 capacity Khalifa Stadium – a world-class venue that was modified for the 2006 Asian Games – over which stands the iconic Khalifa Tower.

But this was mere window dressing for the Aspire Zone, the world’s largest indoor multipurpose sports zone.

This awesome facility, which boasts a FIFA-standard pitch, Olympic pool, an IAAF-accredited athletics track, gymnastics hall, plus numerous other sport facilities, was of a scale and quality that beggars belief.

It also boasts an elite academy for sporting excellence, a facility opened three years ago to create a generation of world-class Qatari and overseas scholarship athletes. It literally takes your breath away, taking the sort of futuristic view of sport that often seems consigned to the realms of fiction. Not only is it open to the country’s elite, but to all Qataris, free of charge – though not those of immigrant stock, who actually form the majority of the population.

The contrast with England – which theoretically is a rival to Qatar in 2022 – was staggering.

There, niggles over comparatively small amounts of money have meant the FA’s proposed center of excellence has remained mothballed for nearly a decade, while a fiscally obsessed and inherently tight-fisted public have criticized the cost of the London Olympics.

When assessing Qatar’s chances, FIFA should consider its willingness to invest in the future.

It’s not just about petro-billions either. Qatar might be the richest country in the world on a per capita basis, but the English Premier League is by far the richest league – yet it can’t muster the £5million ($8.4m) needed to plug the hole in England bid team’s finances.

If money equates to willpower, Qatar has a clear edge.

Qatar’s case for 2022
One of the great things about Saturday’s fixture, which will be replicated if Qatar’s bid is successful, was how it sprinkled some of the great game’s stardust on a population for whom seeing world-class players is a rare treat. Yet there are many more compelling reasons for a World Cup finals to be hosted in Qatar.

For a start, it would represent an historic choice. No Arab country has ever hosted the World Cup before, nor indeed has anywhere with a predominantly Muslim population.

The sort of financial, security and infrastructural problems that look set to undermine South Africa – another ‘landmark’ choice by FIFA – seem inconceivable in Qatar, which has the money, brains and political will to make anything possible.

Qatar might only be a dot on the map, with a population of just 1.6 million, but this would be a World Cup for the whole of the Middle East. The country has its own distinct identity, but the passion and interest shown in other Arab nations’ football was in evidence on Saturday.

As the Brazil v England match teetered to its disappointing conclusion, the stadium concourses and lounges started to fill with fans watching TV screenings of the second half of the crucial Egypt v Algeria World Cup qualifier.

On the way to the airport post-match, your correspondent and a colleague from the Times were held up as supporters blockaded the highway and staged an impromptu midnight party to celebrate Egypt securing a dramatic play-off in Sudan on Wednesday. One imagines the football-mad residents of Cairo and Algiers will be watching the 2022 bid race with similar interest as it reaches its conclusion next December.

The heat remains a key barrier in most minds.

During the summer temperatures hit 50 degrees and even on the eve of winter it was more than 30 degrees during day time. Yet there exists outdoor cooling technologies, which were demonstrated at the home of Al Sadd, Qatar’s leading football club. A vast air-conditioning system, built at a cost of $20million and boasting 6,000 tons of refrigeration, is installed there. It can also control humidity.

Walking across the pitch in late afternoon was like taking an early-spring walk. This is only the first generation of the technology, say the Qataris, later generations will be more eco-friendly and efficient.

Moreover, European broadcasting schedules will demand most World Cup games to be played after dark.

Changing the Middle East’s political complexion
Politically and culturally should it host the World Cup, it will open this already western-facing country up even more to the world. Hard questions were asked by WFI throughout its whistle-stop visit, and most were answered convincingly.

Asked what will happen if Israel qualify for the finals [Qatar, in common with most Arab states, refuses to diplomatically recognize Israel], we were assured that the government would fulfill visa requirements for the team and its fans.

Indeed, until Israel’s murderous invasion of Gaza last year, Qatar had unusually good relations with Israel, even holding a trade office in the country. In 2006 an Israeli women’s volleyball team were welcomed into the country. This might sound like a small gesture, but in Middle East terms it represented a great leap.

Journalists on a tour of the Aspire Zone, the world’s largest indoor multipurpose sports zone (J. Corbett)

Regarding the conduct of visiting fans – the prospect of tens of thousands of English and German fans boozing on their streets; or Brazil’s beautiful and scantily clad female supporters filling its stadia – the Qatar 2022 team said that drinking would be allowed in hotels, fan zones, and the bars that are promised in a new tourist zone. The prospect of women being forced to wear hijabs or cover up was neither true now nor likely to be in 13 years time.

In a region where the lines of social conservatism are sometimes blurred with political and religious fundamentalism, this sense of acceptance and willingness to engage is like a breath of fresh air.

Preconceptions that Qatar is merely trying to buy a World Cup should be dismissed too.

Certainly the bid team has plenty of money and they are not afraid to spend it. But there’s nothing ostentatious or vulgar about their methods, and no evidence of Mulberry handbags being handed out on the side. The Qataris merely utilize their funds to buy the best branding, marketing and sports planners their deep pockets can afford.

Indeed their 24-strong bid team is just one man bigger than England’s, which has a much more developed and well-connected Football Association. They are augmented by outside consultants, including Vero Communications, the UK-marketing agency run by Mike Lee, mastermind of Rio de Janeiro’s recent 2016 Olympics coup.

FIFA’s tough choice
For Qatar’s World Cup bid to succeed, however, it will need a significant leap of faith by FIFA’s Executive Committee in December next year.

This would represent a World Cup without precedent and happen along the lines of an Olympics, where a city opens itself out to the world. The one thing Qatar’s petro-billions cannot buy is land mass and it will always remain, in essence, a city-state comparable in size to Montenegro or the Falkland Islands.

Qatar is trying to persuade the world that its compactness can be an advantage, and there is merit to its argument that no fan will be more than 90 minutes way from a game. But will FIFA be convinced?

One other weakness to its case is the seeming lack of attention given to a domestic football legacy. Much was spoken about athlete development and the creation of a youth sporting culture in Qatar, but how a World Cup would benefit the Qatar Stars League was largely brushed over.

On the other hand, for a country of its size and youth as a footballing nation, it holds significant influence in FIFA’s corridors of power.

Mohammed bin Hammam, the wily president of the Asian Football Confederation and FIFA Executive Committee member, is one of world football’s movers and shakers, and considered a potential FIFA president. Moreover, he has a reputation for getting his way. He will surely be crucial to the bid, even though he has no direct role with it.

The bid team also has a refreshingly youthful feel, and the minds of its leaders are in tune with football’s new globalised order.

In particular, WFI found bid CEO Hassan Al-Thawadi and communications director Nasser Fahad Al-Kahter to be engaging, intelligent and open-minded characters, curious to learn about outside perceptions of their bid and respectful of their rivals.

Significantly their bid is focused on the interests of fan experience and creating a world-class sporting infrastructure in Qatar. It would be an historic choice by FIFA, but it also represents something that is new, different and exciting.

“Expect Amazing” goes Qatar’s campaign slogan, but this is no hyperbole. Indeed, Qatar should be feared by its likely rivals in America and Australia. They should also be applauded for their ambition. But above all, they deserve to be listened to by the world.

Written by James Corbett        

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