in a few days the World Cup kicks off. Alongside
the Olympic Games this is one of the two largest sporting events in the world. Until now
only countries with sufficient economic and demographic potential have been selected
to host it, as the organization itself is very expensive but on the other hand it is a great
ennoblement for the host country. The 2022 World Cup will be held in Qatar which due to its
size would usually never dream of hosting the tournament. However behind everything as
always is
geopolitics. Let's embark on a journey of sporting Financial environmental ideological and Interstate
relations and see why and how Qatar got the World Cup. How key actors in the world and in
the region view it and what the impact of the first World Cup hosted by an Arab
country might be. Welcome to the 20s report Today's episode is brought to you by kamikoto.
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knife set and help support our Channel the episode is based on the report Qatar geopolitics and
World Cup prepared by a team of experts from The Institute
of new Europe if you want to learn more
about the geopolitical site of the championship I encourage you to check out the report a
link to it can be found in the description Qatar is a small Peninsular country located in the
Persian Gulf it is the second smallest country in the Middle East about the size of Kosovo or the US State of Connecticut. By land Qatar borders only Saudi Arabia and for some time after
obtaining independence from Great Britain in 1971 has been treated as Riyadh’s vassal
. however the
discovery of massive oil and natural gas deposits and the start of its production in the early 1990s
changed qatar's Ambitions today despite its small territory Doha is one of the world's three
largest natural gas producers and one of the 20 largest exporters of oil such massive natural
resources have brought enormous wealth to the qataris in terms of GDP per capita calculated in
purchasing power parity Qatar was the wealthiest country in the world in 2017 and remains in the
top four today the country's population is less than 3 million although the number of qataris
is only approximately 10 percent of this number nevertheless while the Qatari people are
economically happy their status in the world and the original position has remained a very
peripheral therefore in order to change this state of affairs Doha has taken a number of wide-ranging
initiatives using the proceeds from the sale of hydrocarbons let's start with the fact that Qatar
with much less potent
ial than its neighbors such as Saudi Arabia Iran or even the United Arab
Emirates had to be more creative in its Ventures that's why Doha for example was quick to recognize
the importance that mass media would play in the modern world in 1996 the qataris created the
Arabic language Al Jazeera TV Ten Years Later an English language version was established today
it is the largest News television channel in the Arab world and has become a powerful tool of
influence in the region and the world
it is mentioned alongside the BBC or CNN in terms of its
organization production and reporter Network much to the disapproval of qatar's neighbors especially
Saudi Arabia Riyadh has sometimes referred to Al Jazeera as doha's propaganda tuce Al jazeera's
Sports offshoot is beIN sports TV with broadcast sporting events in countries around the world
and is also not without relevance to this story another vehicle for building national pride and
its owned position in the world has become sport i
n the 21st century alone Qatar has organized more
than 20 world or Continental Championship events what's more the Qatari authorities were determined
not to merely play the role of whipping a boy at these events a fate that has often befallen
athletes from a country with a sparse Sports averse population and no substantial sporting
tradition still nothing is impossible if you have sufficiently Deep Pockets thus in the world
handball Championship that Qatar organized in 2015 only two qatari-
born players were in
the 17th strong team the rest of the players were naturalized and came from Montenegro Croatia
France or Spain the Cosmopolitan host team won the silver medal. However, Doha's dreams reached even
higher. The Qataris had set their sights on a goal that in theory is unattainable for such a small
country. The qataris dreamed of hosting one of the two biggest sporting events in the world the FIFA
World Cup Doha officially announced its candidacy to host the football tournam
ent in 2009. a brief
historical glance at the past hosts shows how outlandish this wish seemed the last four hosts
that is Russia South Africa Brazil or Germany are all large countries with the latter two being
multiple time world champions the host country of such a tournament must have at least 12 large and
modern stadiums moreover it must have the right hotel and logistical facilities to cope with an
event that is likely to attract several million fans to the country the last tournament
in Russia
was visited by 3 million foreign Spectators this means that if a similar number of fans visited
Qatar the country's population could temporarily even double at the time of its bit Qatar had
no suitable stadiums or even training centers for the teams and the logistics and hotel base
were unprepared to accommodate even a fraction of the expected visiting fans but this is
not even the end of the list of reasons why qatar's candidacy seemed totally illogical the
tournament's organize
r FIFA let's remember Qatar May host the event but FIFA organizes it conducts
its own official ideological narrative in theory it's based on respect for racial minorities
including the no to racism campaigns or support for the rights of the LGBT community but Qatar
is governed by Sharia a religious legal code in which non-heteronormativity is prohibited by
law punishable by imprisonment and even the death penalty in the case of Muslims also alcohol is
banned while beer is an integral part o
f football culture which explains FIFA's lucrative
advertising contracts with beer producers in the eyes of FIFA stakeholders all these
obstacles did not turn out to be too big of a problem on December 2nd 2010 Qatar officially
became the smallest country to organize a tournament of this rank interestingly on the
same day the Russian Federation was also chosen to host the championship but in 2018. The armed aggression against Georgia two years prior was not a factor for the leaders of the
w
orld football organization which would stand in the way of hosting the World Cup the launch of
a military operation by Russia against Ukraine in 2014 also did not bother FIFA despite the ongoing
aggression and the illegal annexation of Crimea Russia hosted the 2018 World Cup now back to the
Gulf. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to the deals that in awarding the championship to Qatar
it wasn't qatar's picturesque sand dunes that convinced the Commissioners to turn a blind
eye to all the
aforementioned contradictions but rather another resource which Doha also
has in abundance and one that proved crucial there are at least several documented corruption
plots involving the Qatari government FIFA or persons associated with it the sums involved
run into hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars to name just a few three weeks before
the vote qatar's al-jazeera offered 400 million dollars to FIFA for the tournament's broadcasting
rights with a further 100 million dollars
to FIFA's account if Qatar was awarded the hosting rights
what's more the Qatari government threw in a further 480 million dollars bringing the total
to close to 1 billion dollars in TV rights alone additionally with the help of global risk advisors
company Qatar conducted a large-scale operation against critics within FIFA it was intended
to help identify the executive committee's most corrupt prone members involved in selecting
the World Cup host the cost of the operation 387 million dol
lars this is where Qatari Muhammad bin
Hamman a member of the FIFA executive committee played his part knowing the appropriate details
he knew who and how to convince and he himself transferred five million dollars to the accounts
of individual FIFA members the meeting which took place at the Elysée Palace on November 23 2010
that is nine days before the host country was chosen was also of critical importance meeting in
the French Capital where Nikola Sarkozy the then president of the Frenc
h Republic Michelle platini
president of the European Football Federation UEFA and former French football star and
Sebastien Bazin a representative of the big but then chronically crisis Reading Club Paris
Saint-Germain as well as the most interesting person of the bunch Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani heir
to the Qatari throne documents prepared by an international group of investigators showed that
the then French president obtained assurances from the future Emir of Qatar to invest in PSG
foo
tball club and French television including purchasing television rights by beIN Sports if
anyone has spent the last few years in a cave it should be said for the sake of formality that the
qataris invested in Paris Saint-Germain in 2011 and the club went from being a mediocre European
team to almost instantly the arguably wealthiest football club in the world this is not the end
of the story at this point we are moving beyond the rigidly sporting framework and into pure
geopolitics Sarkozy
persuaded the UEFA president to support the Arab nation’s candidacy in order
for the qataris to make investments in France and undertake military cooperation five years later
in 2015 Qatar purchased 24 rafale fighter jets for 6.3 billion euros built by French Dassault Aviation
in 2017 12 more were added to the original order and Qatar retained the option to purchase 36 more
the contract also covered missiles helicopters and pilot and Technical Training we are therefore
talking about a multi
-billion dollar investment during the meeting platini assured that he
would vote in favor of Qatar in nine days time oddly enough FIFA is usually very strict on the
tournament host and makes many requests however this time actually made multiple concessions
to help Doha among other things it has reduced the number of required stadiums from 12 to 8.
even though these are still crammed into a very small space what's more the date of the World Cup
has been unprecedentedly shifted from Summer t
o Winter the reason is clear from May to September
temperatures in Qatar reach 45 degrees Celsius or over 100 degrees Fahrenheit while the high
temperature would have bothered the footballers in the view of FIFA and the qataris it did not
bother the workers employed under quasi-slave conditions to build the infrastructure required
for the Championships indeed Qatar has a kafala system in place under which a foreign worker is
under contract with his sponsor the so-called 'kafil'. Such an emp
loyee is not allowed to
leave the country without specific written permission from the sponsor the kafil provides
its employee with transport accommodation and food what was it like to work for a kafil the
standard was for workers to have their passports taken away to work with health and
safety conditions affront to human dignity no overtime pay and exposure to working in
extreme weather conditions for several hours and all this was not only in the construction of
stadiums or Sports infra
structure for the World Cup these situations were also common on other
construction sites in Qatar as a result it is estimated that at least 6500 foreign workers have
died or been killed in Qatar over the past decade primarily migrants from poorer countries in Asia
and Africa what was the salary of a person risking his life on a construction site an investigation
by Doha news found that an Indian worker at the Khalifa International stadium was paid 467 dollars
per month with a Six-Day work
week but there were also reports of amounts as low as 215 dollars FIFA
also Prides itself on creating climate-friendly conditions the world football organization even
has its own climate strategy document the qataris also have declared a desire to host a zero carbon
tournament however the information about potential zero carbon emissions during the world cup is
one thing but building eight concrete stadiums from scratch in the middle of the desert to play
a few matches is another the organi
zers estimate that the World Cup will emit 3.6 megatons of
carbon dioxide equivalent but according to experts the total emission footprint of the World
Cup could be up to 8 times higher we also need to outline The Wider context of the international
situation in the region anyone observing the Middle East knows how complicated this area is
at the center of this Boiling Pot is Qatar this map showing doha's Interstate relations with its
neighbors illustrates this well in the Middle East the ma
p of alliances and conflicts often does
not align logically for example Qatar maintains good relations with Iran unlike the United Arab
Emirates Bahrain or Saudi Arabia on the other hand Syria is a close Ally of Iran while the UAE
and Bahrain have normalized relations with it but Qatar is hostile to Syria Qatar has similarly
hostile relations with Israel which is one of the reasons it supports the radical Palestinian group
Hamas on the other hand Qatar has a very close relationship with tur
key mainly due to its support
for the Muslim Brotherhood and turkey's 2017 military aid to the Doha what kind of Aid are we
talking about deteriorating Qatar Saudi relations led to the formation of a saudi-led anti-Qatar
Coalition in 2017. it was joined by the UAE Egypt Bahrain and the Maldives the aim was the economic
isolation of Qatar which only has a land border with Saudi Arabia this included a campaign to
discredit the Qatari World Cup the us-based pro-saudi group SAPRAC published a r
eport titled
Qatar hosting Sports Under the banner of terrorism but Qatar did not give in it found key allies in
Ankara and Tehran leading to a rapid reorientation of trade and the implementation of new policies
the final blockade of the state by its neighbors proved ineffective the boycott with the support of
U.S diplomacy and Kuwait officially ended in 2021. although Qatar does not have the military
demographic and geographical potential to claim the role of regional power it often tries
to play one the very fact of hosting the World Cup raises The Prestige of the small state however
this Prestige can quickly be turned to infamy when during a championship watched by billions of
people events threatening the health of fans or to put it bluntly acts of terrorism occur in
the Middle East which is home to dozens of major terrorist organizations and several hundred
Affiliated groups such a threat is very real the security situation is exacerbated by the very
likely logistical p
roblems of Hosting hundreds of thousands of fans and the inexperience of the
Qatari authorities in organizing such events this is where NATO comes into play Qatar became
a major non-nato Ally in early 2022 as part of the close cooperation on the occasion of the
championship NATO provides support including training on chemical biological radiological and
nuclear threats the first training session have already been conducted in May 2022 in addition the
Americans will help identify airline pas
sengers involved in international criminal terrorists and
human trafficking activities the British will send their Air Force and navy France will provide
early warning and reconnaissance systems while the Turks will deploy more than 3 000 security
Personnel this should come as no surprise as the 13 teams that have qualified for the World Cup
are NATO members so many citizens of the member states are sure to go to the Championships there
is a lot to be said about the Qatar World Cup corrupti
on feigned environmentalism or human
rights abuses but there is one thing everyone can agree on it took a lot of perseverance for
the qataris to get through all those hurdles certain methods aside Qatar did make it possible
for the World Cup to be held in a middle eastern and Islamic Country For the First Time although
the conditions for awarding the tournament are to put it mildly inappropriate it should be
emphasized that sport could be a factor that will bring together the often conflict
ing cultures
of the West and the Middle East moving on although FIFA made concessions to Qatar in many places
Doha had to yield in others for example Qatar will allow alcohol under certain conditions
and will allow rainbow Flags to be displayed in stadiums on the other hand it is not known how
the authorities will react when the promotion of non-heteronormative behavior occurs outside the
stadiums and outside of FIFA's jurisdiction from the statements of high-ranking Qatar officials it
can
be concluded that fans Can Count On A reduced tariff and during the month of the World Cup Qatar
will be much more liberal country than it usually is but the most important question is what exactly
does Qatar need the World Cup for after thousands of negative Publications against FIFA and the
government in Doha the hypothesis of building a country's positive image can essentially be put
into the realm of fairy tales so after all that what's the point there are essentially three
answers fir
st the World Cup is to help build qatar's future accompanied by the Qatar National
Vision 2030 plan although it is hard to say that the World Cup will be the most effective way
of developing the country the pressure that qataris imposed on themselves is undoubtedly
a big accelerator. Suffice is to say that since 2008 this small country has spent the equivalent
of 225 billion dollars on domestic Investments secondly the championship somehow legitimizes
the still young Qatar State Qatar needs
this legitimacy as a little boy living in a troubled
neighborhood as mentioned earlier the World Cup raises doha's Prestige especially in
relation to its more powerful Neighbors oddly enough also Saudi Arabia may have stakes
in qatar's eventual success until recently openly hostile to Doha the Saudis have realized that
if the qataris manage the major event well the chances of the next major sporting spectacular
coming to Saudi Arabia increase significantly following the normalization of Qa
tar Saudi Arabia
relations in 2021 the first initiatives at the interface between Sport and business have already
emerged there is increasing talk of a joint beat by the two countries to host the Olympic Games in
2036 or 2040 whereas the Saudi kingdom is already building together with Greece and Egypt to host
the 2030 World Cup therefore the World Cup also has a dimension of softening Regional relations
as everyone is playing toward one goal this is also an additional reason why no country
from the
Middle East will win nothing from the potential displays of terrorism during the tournament
moreover the national teams of Saudi Arabia and Iran will participate in the championship adding
to the overall increase in doha's Prestige is the situation resulting from the war in Ukraine
its position as a key exporter of natural gas especially to the many European countries looking
for a substitute for Russian gas further increases qatar's importance finally and perhaps most
importantly
as Professor Simon Chadwick points out the World Cup is primarily intended to help Qatar
build a national identity Qatar is defined by its wealth but beyond that it has not experienced many
moments that could become an exponent for future Generations such as an iconic and unifying event
an event that focuses their world's attention on the people and culture of Qatar the World Cup in
Qatar will begin in a few days time the manner in which Qatar received and then prepared the
cup had little
to do with the slogans that FIFA is displaying on its banners racism human rights
violations corruption and environmental pollution all these accusations are well founded and can be
leveled at Qatar and even FIFA itself nevertheless the proverbial milk has already been spilled thus
although the event itself was born in disgraceful conditions it has the potential for positive
effects as well namely the stabilization of their Region's relations particularly between Qatar
and Saudi Arabia also
a meeting between eastern and western cultures the pressure for greater
respect for basic human rights in the region and the State Building factor in Qatar all this can be
quite significant and just as the world is never black and white the World Cup in Qatar may be
aptly viewed with a sense of the bittersweet
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