Qatar: the Wrong Destination for World Cup 2022
It’s as if The Onion had been engaged to write a sarcastic paean to the corruption and stupidity of FIFA, the world governing body for soccer, and come up with the most improbable story imaginable. The tiny Arab emirate of Qatar outbid the United States, Japan, Australia, and South Korea for the right to host the 2022 World Cup championship.
How they did it is still something of a mystery. Two members of FIFA’s executive committee were suspended after being caught in a sting operation by a British newspaper that had reporters posing as lobbyists, promising cash in return for their votes, but it would be near impossible to bribe enough members of the board to win the right to host the World Cup.
More likely, it hinged on the $100 billion that Qatar is promising to spend on infrastructure prior to the tournament. This includes:
* $25 billion rail network
* $20 billion on new roads
* $11 billion new airport expected to open in 2012, with capacity to handle around 50 million passengers a year
* $5.5 billion new deep water seaport
* $1 billion crossing linking new airport with mega-projects in northern part of the capital, Doha
Plus, Qatar has promised to build nine new stadiums and renovate three others at a cost of another $3 billion.
Western construction and material supply companies are absolutely licking their chops at the prospect of this tiny duchy of a country tossing around that kind of green. Given the connections of FIFA members to the largest corporations in the world, you see why bribery would be a waste of time. The real dough is had by getting on the good side of the amir and his family, who own everything of value in the country and will dole out contracts for that $100 billion in spending. Granting them the most prestigious sporting event in the world is a good start toward grabbing a goodly share of King Solomon’s riches.
But really … Qatar? Like most nations of the world, they are soccer mad, but there are barely enough native Qatarians to fill one stadium, much less 12. There are three times as many foreign workers in Qatar than there are native born citizens, but they will probably not be allowed to attend any of the games.
Why? It seems that FIFA has chosen a World Cup host who tolerates virtual human slavery. From the CIA Factbook on Qatar:
Qatar is a destination country for men and women from South and Southeast Asia who migrate willingly, but are subsequently trafficked into involuntary servitude as domestic workers and laborers, and, to a lesser extent, commercial sexual exploitation; the most common offense was forcing workers to accept worse contract terms than those under which they were recruited; other conditions include bonded labor, withholding of pay, restrictions on movement, arbitrary detention, and physical, mental, and sexual abuse.
Yes, but the amir is working diligently to fix this problem — sort of:
[T]he Government of Qatar does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so; in February 2009, Qatar enacted a new migrant worker sponsorship law that criminalizes some practices commonly used by trafficking offenders, and it announced plans to use that law effectively to prevent human trafficking; punishment for offenses related to trafficking in persons remains lower than that for crimes such as rape and kidnapping, and the Qatari government has yet to take significant action to investigate, prosecute, and punish trafficking offenses; the government continues to lack formal victim identification procedures and, as a result, victims of trafficking are likely punished for acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked.
The amir certainly doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to fix the problem. But then, he has 12 years to reform the labor situation before Euro-sensibilities regarding working class Pakistanis and Indians are piqued by their plight.
No matter. If human trafficking doesn’t bother you much — it certainly doesn’t worry FIFA — how about Qatar’s financing of terrorism? Or harboring terrorists? This is a snippet from an IMF report on terrorist financing in Qatar:
(A)n interdepartmental committee has been established to coordinate Qatar’s efforts in the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1267 and the international conventions on the fight against terrorism, but its mandate does not cover UNSCR 1373; no authority has been granted the powers to designate terrorists; and there is no legal basis for freezing under the relevant UNSCR. … It also appeared that, on one occasion, the authorities offered safe harbor to a person designated under UNSCR 1267. No actions were taken with respect to this person’s funds and other assets. (Page 10.)
The preventive measures for financial institutions in the domestic sector fall short of addressing a vast majority of the customer due diligence elements of the international standard. … The current obligations do not prohibit the opening of anonymous accounts or accounts in fictitious names. There are no direct requirements to determine whether a person is acting on behalf of the customer nor to identify and verify the beneficial owner of the account. The requirements for ensuring that customer documentation, information, or data are kept up-to-date are inadequate. Requirements for addressing enhanced due diligence for higher-risk categories are incomplete. There are no measures in place addressing politically exposed persons and cross-border correspondent relationships. There are no provisions covering the risk associated with new or developing technologies. (Page 11.)
So they have terrorist coddling going for them too.
There are the usual issues that you find in any Arab country with virulent anti-Semitism, polygamy, and an attitude toward women that fits right in with the emirate’s 14th century mode of governance. There is no elected legislature. The people are subjects, beholden to the capricious whims of a potentate with three wives and 24 children. There is a “Municipal Council” where some members are elected, but the reality is that all power is in the hands of the amir, a nice enough fellow who is apparently considered a “progressive” in the Arab world but is still an autocrat.
What really beggars belief is that FIFA failed to take into account two crucial factors in their decision: the climate and Qatar as a tourist destination for Westerners.
As for the latter, just what is there to do in Qatar? This is from the official tourist site:
Tourists can explore the natural environment of Qatar by taking an exciting desert safari, relaxing at the many beaches and pools or just enjoying their favourite sport, be it bowling alleys, tennis, snookers, billiards, golf courses, or ice skating rinks. There is something for everyone in this wonderful place.
No doubt the British football hooligans are salivating at the thought of starting poolside fights or breaking up a bowling alley or two. There are good restaurants but alas, no drinking allowed except in exclusive hotels and clubs.
In fact, Qatar would do well to vastly expand the number of venues allowed to serve alcohol, or come 2022, soccer fans will be rioting because they won’t be able to get a beer or three. It’s going to be like tailgating at a football game where brats are outlawed. Americans wouldn’t sit still for that, and I doubt the boisterous Euro-football fanatics will be satisfied with citrus juice or iced tea.
They will need something cold to drink because the weather forecast for July 2022 will be sunny and hot. Temperatures will be at 110 degrees or above, which will give a whole new meaning to the term “sightseeing.”
It would be something akin to the NFL entertaining Super Bowl bids from cities like Tampa, Miami, San Diego, and Dallas and then awarding the game to Minot, North Dakota. Now Minot is a nice little town with friendly, hardy citizens, but playing a football game in early February with temps that can get as low as 40 below zero should not have been the NFL’s idea of an exciting venue.
For Qatar, how, you might ask, do they expect people to sit in the stands and watch a sporting event with the thermometer tickling 120 degrees. How do they expect players to perform in such life-draining heat?
The answer is — magic! Qatar has promised to build open air stadiums with air conditioning and to make them carbon neutral for good measure.
The plan is to plaster solar cells all over the roof and the outside of the stadium to capture the sun’s energy, turn that energy into freezing cold water, and then use gigantic blowers to circulate cold air for spectators and players.
FIFA bought it. Experts aren’t so sure:
Because of the massive amount of energy that air conditioning needs, some are sceptical that solar panels will actually be able to generate enough energy so they can claim to be carbon neutral. This includes David Butler of the Building Research Establishment (BRE).
“Putting solar panels on the outside of the Qatari stadium will not generate enough energy to cool it,” Mr Butler says. “They will simply run out of juice as the amount of energy required to do this would far outstrip the number of panels.”
The whole thing sounds like a Rube Goldberg idea. No doubt in the end they will need massive generators to assist in this green scheme of cooling fans and players. The fact that they will be playing most of the contests at night will probably help in making the games bearable to watch, but if you’re planning on going, I suggest you stay in your hotel and watch the games on TV.
Even if it works and fans don’t melt into their seats, the question remains: Why? Why sacrifice whatever high ideals are connected with the World Cup — and there are precious few that haven’t been sullied by FIFA — by holding the tournament in a socially backward autocracy that winks at terrorists and terror financing while allowing nauseatingly hateful bigotry directed against Jews?
It’s the money, stupid.
“Why hold such a prestigious sporting event in a socially backward autocracy?”
The answer is obvious to anyone who has followed the sport for any length of time. FIFA is nothing more than a miniature version of the UN. Every bit as corrupt and unprincipled as their model.
Besides the good points concerning the migrant laborers, women, environment, and alcohol; my big questions is what will happen should Israel qualify for the WC finals, would the team be allowed to play or even enter the country? I know its a long shot but stranger things have happened. I have been to Qatar and other Arab/Islamic countries on occasion and found most of the people friendly but there is a disturbing undercurrent that pervades those societies from my (l)iberal western view point.
Celebrating Diversity! Moral and Cultural Relativism, learn to love it or be called an intolerant bigoted supremacist.
Hell, i’d be afraid .no islamic countries for me..
The IOC awarded the Olympic Games to the Soviet Union in 1980, and to the PRC in 2008. Why should FIFA be expected to be less corrupt and sycophantic than it?
Of course it’s the money. Qatar is the richest or second richest (Qatar, Luxembourg, Norway) country in the world; more important, it’s Muslim.
What are you complaining? That the world ought to run in some sane fashion?
What wrong with Minot? At least the security would be there and for once the super-duper rich players would have to show some balls (pun intended).
My friends,:
The title is wrong, as soon as the article is impeccable.
The good title might be
“And FIFA goes where the cash is. Again…”
“The tiny Arab emirate of Qatar outbid the United States, Japan, Australia, and South Korea for the right to host the 2022 World Cup championship.
How they did it is still something of a mystery.”
A cursory glance at the ethics of FIFA will solve the mystery.
It’s SOCCER for g*d’s sake! No one cares where they all scupper off to every four years to watch the most boring game on earth. It makes cricket look exciting.
“No one cares where they all scupper off to every four years to watch the most boring game on earth.”
Yet some 3,000,000,000 people all over the world watch the world cup!
Super Bowl … just over 100 million.
I never got cricket either.
I don’t understand anyone getting their panties in a wad over any kind of sports, period! More important things in life.
I learned everything I needed to know about soccer in the 1994 world cup. The US played Brazil. Brazil won 1-0. No one scored in the first half. The US had a man advantage for the entire second half and could not score. Brazil scored late in the second half. So what is the point of having 11 people on the team when one more or less really doesn’t seem to matter?
Qatar and Russia bought the World Cup hosting rights and FIFA is corrupt – that’s all there is to it. It’s a no-brainer, even FIFA know they were bought. It’s clear there’s absolutely no level playing field when a secret ballot determines the bids.
The winners made sure their strongest opponents, nations like Australia and England fully capable of hosting such a tournament were eliminated in the first round by receiving a solitary vote. Like the UN, FIFA parrots high moral standards like tolerance, diversity, unity, fairness etc., but in actuality it’s a hotbed of middle-aged con men enjoying junkets and planning more than comfortable retirements in posh hotel foyers. Simply, the US and Australia are better served funding development, and winning international tournaments.
Winning a world cup leaves a far greater legacy than hosting ever can.
Of current legacies we can say FIFA is no role model, their actions convey given the right environment and setting, cashed up sheiks and crooks can determine outcomes in the sport, and for that football or soccer is the ultimate loser. When the time comes watch FIFA deny endemic corruption in the CFA, and praise China’s bid too.
hmmm the Brits bought the Olympic games once upon a time too !
So, why whining after the Russians, or Katar, that means that your elite hadn’t money enough to throw into the basket, uh crisis anyone ?
Pointing out that FIFA is a corrupt organization, and those who deal with it must acknowledge as much or forever be naive is not whine. It’s matter of fact. Defend FIFA all you want but those who turn a blind eye to its corruption are just as comfortable with corruption as FIFA is; or any other suspect political body or organization for that matter eg. the IOC, even Congress.
There is no democracy in corruption. Why FIFA has a supposed “voting process” at all (backroom secret ballot should give you a clue) is beyond me – they’re crooked oligarchs and auctioneers until proven otherwise.
so, a don Quichotte can change the rules ? go on !
“Blatter told a Swiss magazine that England were “displaying the arrogance of the western world of Christian background”, and denied that Fifa was systematically corrupt. He did concede that the organisation had an image problem that had to be addressed.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/england/8189550/World-Cup-2018-Fifa-president-Sepp-Blatter-says-England-are-bad-losers.html
That’s why: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01778/qatar3_1778092c.jpg
There are other global factors at work here from FIFA’s point of view. Think of Qatar as an analogue for the middle east because that is certainly the way the middle east will view it. FIFA wants to engage those people for the sake of the future of the sport. By drawing world wide attention to the elements of social injustice you describe FIFA will help to end such things and not endorse them.
Basketball is making unwelcome inroads all over the world from FIFA’s point of view. As such, it makes no sense to engage an already lost America which cares nothing for soccer outside of its immigrant population. FIFA believes that inclusiveness will raise their global revenues and South Africa and the middle east are examples of this philosophy. I’m surprised FIFA didn’t want the World Cup in India.
Qatar is a country the elite of the EU (and FIFA) admire. It’s that simple. It’s no different than the ’36 and ’80 Olympics in National Socialist Germany (admired the the EUropean elite) and International Socialist Russia (admired by the EUropean elite). The EU (and FIFA) elite hate les Anglo-Saxons, Globalization, etc., and took the opportunity to embarrass both England and the US. The awarding of the cups the Russiand and Qatar can be a surprise only those who don’t understand EUrope.
Here’s hoping that a miracle occurs and Israel qualifies for one of Europe’s spots.
hey, don’t forget the exclusion of Israelis! They’re good at the football! Can”t have them Israeli Jews hanging around.
Yeah, of course it’s the money – and the Eurabia compact.
What’s new?
I see my commemt is awaiting moderation.
So is Islam.
haw!
hey my first comment vanished.
FIFA chose a country that excludes Israelis because of the money and becaue of the Eurabia compact.
So what’s new?
I was waiting for KOREA to be announced as the winner for ’22. SK, you have 11 years to cross the 38th parallel and git ‘er done!!!
Rick, Rick!! Lighten up!! They’re not talking about baseball or football for god’s sake!! They are talking about soccer!! Who cares where they play? A game goes, what?, 10 or 12 hours and then the score is only one to nothing. In fact, soccer belongs in a place like Qatar. Just because the Qataris can afford to bribe the soccer lords is no reason to go hating on them.
“They are talking about soccer!! ”
A minor correction: They are talking about football.
Specifically, the name of the game is Association Football, which our British cousins shortened to Assoc Football => Soc Football => Soccer.
So, the name is Soccer. The “Football” appellation is too general as it includes Rugby Football AND American Football, both of which are far more exciting to watch.
Thank you for the clarification.
What I meant is that just about in every European language the game is called football – foot + ball: Fußball, fotboll, jalkapallo, voetbal, ποδόσφαιρο, fútbol, football, Футбол, jalgpall, etc.
American ‘football’ is called rugby or American football.
I like soccer/football. I like the athleticism of moving a ball without hands. I can like 0-0 games because I appreciate that this sport is not about easy gratification but about long-term (decades) struggles – and you only get 90 minutes every now and then to hope you can make a difference to the old war story that just goes on and on.
However, I’ve had enough. I’m declaring peace and taking up lawn bowling. I’m out of caring about the World Cup. The exemplary game of the industrial city has now fully declared itself for neo-feudalism.
Contest: what should the acronym FIFA “really” stand for?
See, I’ll never understand why sports fans seem to think that athletic prowess is directly proportional to moral superiority and then get all disappointed and gobsmacked when Tiger Woods cheats on his wife or Pete Rose gambles on his own game or OJ kills his wife. It seems to me the same thing is going on here. Is FIFA chartered for human rights, political reform, social justice? I can see the lousy tourism and the energy problems as legitimate minuses, but what do all those other things have to do with guys chasing a ball around?
Sports fans of the world, give up!
Also factor in that Sepp Blatter is a complete idiot when it comes to multicultural issues. Recall his statements about the voo-voo horns in South Africa being an expression of indigenous musical traditions (Ladysmith Black Mambazu would take strong exception to that characterization). I am sure he would dismiss all of your criticisms as racist and due to intolerance of non-Western values. Heck, if a non-European pissed in his face he would celebrate the rainstorm!
It’s the money; the checks from Qatar won’t bounce, can’t say that for USA et al.
Qatar is at least taking all its lovely oil money and building something worthwhile. In addition to the stadiums and other things, they are also importing a fine university system. This is a Muslim nation with a sparse and backward populace, and a government that is doing its best to honor its responsibility to them. While I am sure the lot in life of their imported servants is not wonderful, I have to wonder whether they treat their native servants (and themselves) any better.
Qatar is a country that is getting a lot more right than a number of other countries in the immediate region. God bless ‘em.
i read that al qaeda was thrilled by this and says they will own the world cup as they will own qatar by 2022
http://www.timeslive.co.za/sport/soccer/article796624.ece/Extremists-see-Islamic-State-for-2022-World-Cup
I was in Qatar in July 2009 on leave from Iraq. If they don’t have it inside they will cook like chickens. 118 degrees with high humidity. Uggghhh.
FIFA is thoroughly corrupt. Luckily, this will be a fiasco of the first magnitude and show this criminal cartel for what it is.
FIFA’s endemic political correctness isn’t exactly news. After all, they awarded this year’s tournament to the formerly civilized nation of South Africa. Several games would have been played in near-empty stadiums had the authorities not opened the gates to everyone after 25-30 minutes.
Given the climate, common sense would require the vast majority of games to be played at night or early morning. (I have no confidence in those far-out cooling schemes either.) Contrast that to the several late-night games played in ZA under single-digit wind chills. Apparently the schedulers forgot June & July are winter months in the southern hemisphere.
As for Super Bowl sites, the winter weather in NYC isn’t much better than Minot, but the NFL awarded the place a future game anyway. And just a few years ago the Super Bowl was held in the sub-Arctic Third World enclave of Detroit, where bigwigs had to be bused in from suburban hotels because the city didn’t have enough rooms.
If we assume that FIFA wanted to give it to a country that hadn’t been host before, that left just two candidates for 2022: Australia and Qatar. Australia is more focused on cricket than soccer, which isn’t true for Qatar. Plus, Australia is far away from Europe and Qatar is comparatively close. (Keep in mind that Europe will send more teams than any other region.) And Qatar, while being a single country, represents an entire region, the Arab world, while Australia represents only itself. If I were part of FIFA, I would have preferred Morocco or Tunisia, but they didn’t make bids, so Qatar got chosen. Plus, they have the money to pull it off.
At least, right now they have the money. Anything can happen in twelve years. If Qatar goes into a recession or gets taken over by Iran or suffers some catastrophe, the U.S. might end up hosting it anyway, just like we did for the Women’s World Cup of 2003, which China was supposed to host.
Hmm, for what it’s worth, Qatar is one of the first Islamic countries to allow a Roman Catholic church there.
The real question other than why anyone reading PJM cares is, what annoyance will the people of Qatar bring to the cup? Prayer mats on the field? Minarettes in the stadium architecture?
Churches have existed far longer in other majority Islamic countries, like Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey.
If wikileaks is to be believed, the Qataris are among the most reluctant to pursue terrorists. However, given the general American disinterest in soccer I don’t think it really matter.