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Evisceration of ‘a Qatar World Cup’ in The Times 16, November 2010

Posted by thegulfblog.com in Qatar.
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6 comments

The Chief sporting correspondent of The Times of London, Matt Dickinson, has written a scathing indictment of a would-be Qatari World Cup.

At times the article borders on what appears to be a deep-seated personal animosity, but, overall, I get the impression that Dickinson is simply genuinely angry at the thought of the World Cup being in Qatar. Not at all for any kind of nefarious, pseudo-racist, jingoistic reason as some may suggest given the severity of his critique, but because Dickinson is a passionate football fan and the key flaw in Qatar’s World Cup is that it would resolutely not put the fans first.

I quote at length as The Times is behind a pay-wall.

Anyone with money, sense or opportunity flees Qatar in June and July. Or stays indoors…The heat makes the place unbearable, with temperatures at 50C (122F)…They say it is possible to overcome this furnace. Hundreds of thousands of fans can move from air-conditioned hotels via air-conditioned trains to air-conditioned stadiums. Relaxation will be found in air-conditioned shopping malls.

Perhaps this sounds like your idea of fun. Perhaps you do not mind the idea of a World Cup in a sizzling sandpit the size of Jamaica.

But most of us quite like the idea of outdoors. Of freedom. Of not being trapped inside, least of all at a football tournament.

Clearly, the summer heat is a true and profound problem for Qatar. Dickinson’s assessment is unimpeachable: Qatar is a simply stinkingly and uncomfortably hot place in the summer. Yes, the stadiums will be cooled to some degree and yes there will be air-conditioned transportation and the like, but I really agree with Dickinson on this point: I don’t want to spend all my time in malls. I too like the outdoors and milling around in throngs of crowds enjoying one event. This is part of the World Cup experience.

And – devastatingly – as the American member of FIFA’s board has put it, “you can’t air-condition a whole country.”

While we can imagine Australia, to take just one of Qatar’s rivals, being galvanised to show itself as a great sporting nation, embracing its World Cup visitors, Doha lacks just about everything, including the stadiums, the hotels, the fans and the climate.

As for cultural exploration, it is going to get very crowded along the alleyways of Doha’s sweaty souk.

Harsh but fair, I suppose. Qatar is truly bereft of anything like the necessary infrastructure at the moment.

A World Cup in Qatar is a laughable idea so it shows what a farcical process the bidding has become that we have had to start taking it seriously.

While in England we are understandably preoccupied by the 2018 race, the greatest injustice of all could be played out in the 2022 vote if a combination of Qatari oil money and collusion secures victory for this little emirate over Australia or its main rivals, the United States.

…

Yet the possibility of vote-swapping between Qatar 2022 and Spain-Portugal 2018 could put both bids near the front of the grid.

Although the suspension of two executive committee members after a Sunday Times exposé is the main item on the agenda for Fifa’s ethics committee as it meets over the next few days, it is the collusion that has the most potential to warp the process.

And it will be impossible to stop in a secret ballot if Fifa is determined to go ahead with holding the 2018 and 2022 votes together on December 2. There was a proposal to postpone 2022 but Michel Platini, in his wisdom, was among the senior voices saying the show must go on, however lacking in credibility.

Qatar and Spain-Portugal deny any collusion but they could start with seven votes each, potentially taking the World Cup back to Spain, where it was staged more recently than in England, and to Qatar, where you can fry an egg on your car bonnet.

…

But Blatter must be sitting in his office wondering how to avoid the farce whereby the World Cup goes to a nation with a population less than Zurich’s and that has little if any use for all the stadiums, hotels and much of the infrastructure that would be built.Ensuring defeat for Qatar is vital if Fifa is to salvage any credibility. Trust in the organisation, and its processes, is already shot to pieces.

Quite the rant.

Yet Dickinson has many crucial points which, while forcefully made, are nevertheless valid. For Dickinson – a life-long football fan – a Qatari World Cup would simply represent a whole-sale rejection of what most fans actually want and a triumph of money over sense. This is the kernel of the issue that Qatar must overcome.