Nooone really knows for sure how far and in what way the current upheavals among Arab nations are going, but I suspect the fate of Qatar is beginning to put some nerves in the football world on edge.
Qatar was not only recently picked by FIFA as the host nation for the 2022 World Cup, it has also in recent months signed a lucrative sponsorship deal with FC Barcelona after pouring money into a far less successful SpanishPrimera Liga club Malaga and reportedly showing an interest in Manchester United.
Ever since the country’s leader, Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani came to power, by instigating a bloodless coup against his father, Qatar has earned a reputation as a “developing democracy” not without influence. It has one of the world’s largest natural gas fields in its waters, is home to the Al Jazeera TV network and has been clever in using sport, especially football, to market the country internationally.
Qatar has gone from being a relatively modest absolute monarchy to being one of the richest states in the world. Barca’s current coach Pep Guardiola is one of several football stars that have done a professional and promotional stint on behalf of the Qatari Football Association. Others include Marcel Desaillly, Gabriel Batitusta and the ex Barca player Ronal de Boer whose brother Frank also moved to Qatar and was one of the ambassadors for the 2022 World Cup bid.
Central to the bid was a revolutionary cooling system that would use solar power to provide zero-carbon air conditioning to cool the stadiums, technology that has the potential to transform the lives of tens of millions living near the equator.
And it is the legacy that a Middle Eastern World Cup could bring that has arguably persuaded FIFA to take a risk on Qatar. After the tournament, Qatar has promised to dismantle the modular stadiums and rebuild them in third world countries who can’t afford their own. But there’s an even bigger legacy that the Qatari bid have been pushing: Peace in the Middle East through football.
Quite a boast and one that could still come back to haunt Qatar and its friends, if the country itself and some of its neighbors also become embroiled in a much broader political uprising and their current system of governance proves unsustainable.
