Reasons why Qatar will host 2022 World Cup
Roar Pro By Michael Turner, 26 Aug 2010 Michael Turner is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- 2022 FIFA World Cup, football, Qatar football, World Football
It is no secret that a fair majority of Australian football fans are quietly confident that Australia will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. However, as details and bid books are released, Qatar 2022 has emerged as the Dark Horse bid.
Many rumours have been dug out of the ground on this bid. However, most have not been denied, nor proven. Could this be the face of the future?
Qatar 2022.
What has Qatar got over Australia? Which will be the better host of the world’s largest sporting event? Will Qatar progress on politics? The latter question is surely plausible with the heads of the sport seemingly easily excited by each bid, an strong example being the head of the AFC, Mohammed Bin Hammam, who has stated that he is throwing his support behind the Qatari bid.
Recently FIFA President Sepp Blatter has also thrown his support behind the Arabic nation’s bid.
What has Australia got over Qatar? Australia pips Qatar in the fields of infrastructure and the standard of domestic football. However, Qatar brings one strong card to the table.
National support.
Now I am not relating this statement to the nation’s government, as obviously all bid teams have Government support, but the Qatar bid, as do many, have no stiff opposition from other codes.
Football is the predominant football code in Qatar.
Still, Qatar’s bid has been plagued at length by several problems – the most controversial being Israel. The lengthy debate has taken many different viewpoints, but most noticeable is FIFA’s lack of opinion.
As it currently stands, the government heads of the Muslim state will allow Israel to take part in the tournament if it held in their country, despite not recognising them as a country. Other issues stated by the FIFA inspection board are, of course, alcohol and the weather.
On the issue of alcohol, Hassan Abdulla al Thawadi (Chief Executive of the Qatar World Cup Bid Team) has stated that the Muslim state is prepared to allow the sale of alcohol during the tournament, and that specialised fan areas will be created to sell alcohol.
So now the main issue for the bid team is the weather.
The FIFA World Cup is held in summer, a time where the temperature in Qatar reaches almost 40 degrees celsius. But instead of being a problem, this becomes Qatar’s number one selling point. And here’s why.
Qatar’s riches and technological advancement means that they are planning on presenting their drawcard: temperature control within the grounds.
And there is one last idea for Qatar 2022.
First mentioned in an ESPN Online article at the end of last year was that an all-indoor World Cup could be on the cards if Qatar were to win the rights to host the FIFA World Cup 2022. The last time a FIFA World Cup match was held indoors was USA 1994, who are also running to host the 2022 competition.
Whoever does eventually host the 2022 tournament, be it Australia, Qatar, USA, or any of the other bids, it is sure to be a revolutionary tournament.
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August 26th 2010 @ 3:09am
Chris Y. said | August 26th 2010 @ 3:09am | Report comment
It would be fresh for FIFA to see a world cup held in the middle east. Qatar held the 2006 Asian games, and i think they will be more than ready to host the 2022 world cup
August 26th 2010 @ 5:44am
AndrewMc said | August 26th 2010 @ 5:44am | Report comment
“Recently FIFA President Sepp Blatter has also thrown his support behind the Arabic nation’s bid.”
I think you will find that Sepp Blatter has thrown his support behind every bid at some point in time.
August 26th 2010 @ 9:04am
Luke W said | August 26th 2010 @ 9:04am | Report comment
Michael “The Burner” Turner. I’ve got a healthy wager on you to be the leading rusher in the NFL this year, so don’t let me down.
In all seriousness, Qatar has no chance. The western world isn’t ready for a WC/Olympics in the Middle East. I can’t see FIFA taking the risk, but if they do sell out for the $$$, I just can’t see it being a success in any way shape or form.
August 26th 2010 @ 12:13pm
Michael Turner said | August 26th 2010 @ 12:13pm | Report comment
FIFA wouldnt be giving the hosting rights to Qatar for the standard of football, it would be for the press of being in the Middle East, and the revolutionary ideas presented. It will be completely money driven, and remember the only reason 1994 was help in the USA was so that FIFA could reap the huge opportunities in the USA
August 26th 2010 @ 9:05am
michael said | August 26th 2010 @ 9:05am | Report comment
What an embarrassing article. I don’t know if you realised this but Bin Hammam is a Qatari, of course he should back the bid of his nation of birth. The guy would not be able to return otherwise without fear his head will be literally at the chopping board. Also what has Qatar done for development of football in the world? Nothing. All they have done is steal players from Africa and give them citizenships when Qatar is one of the hardest nations on the globe to get citizenship in. Pretty much you have to be given it by one of ruling family or a sheik in Qatar to become a citizen, all unless you are a promising footballer from Africa. More than 15 of the 29 man squad for the previous world cup qualification campaign were non-qatari’s who had been lured to change nationality via money, this is a disgrace to international football. You cannot go steal players from other nations and say your country is all that, even still Qatar has NEVER qualified for a world cup and have failed miserably on multiple occasions. This is all without the geopolitical and climatic turbulence prevalent within the region. I have lived in Qatar and I know what Qatar can do and what they can’t. They cannot hold a world cup in a 1 mill pop country with a real population of 300000 citizens and with one real city of Doha, I mean what an economic waste, what is Qatar going to do with it all after the world cup? There is no legacy, there are merely white elephants, besides I’m sure alcohol companies would raise a significant eyebrow at such a proposal. Anyway the sad thing is unrealistic bids such as Qatar continue to be battered along by FIFA without telling them to pack it up. Either way go AUSTRALIA for 2022!!!
August 26th 2010 @ 12:10pm
Michael Turner said | August 26th 2010 @ 12:10pm | Report comment
Bin Hammamm had previously pledged his loyalty to the Australian World Cup bid at the beginning of last year. The idea of not being a major football nation is not of a concern to FIFA, because they are trying to increase football’s popularity and reach around the globe. Hence the South Africa world cup. As a result, FIFA have a ten point plan on getting hosting rights to the lesser countries.
Companies in Qatar have contributed on many an occasion to the funding of the FIFA World Cup, esp Japan Korea 2002, and South Africa, building the Solar Panels that powered several fan sites and stadiums, the same technology they will bring to the table if they are to host the competition.
Qatar’s bid team have pledged the upper tiers of the stadia’s to other developing countries to help build their infrastructure in football, and have been highly commended by FIFA, and are current at evens with Australia on an independant table of the hosts.
Despite all points, a paragraph was ommitted from this upon submission, which entailed my support for the 2022 competition, and the original title was Dark Horse: Qatar 2022.
Please get your facts correct before trying to contradict these presented.
August 27th 2010 @ 1:32pm
michael said | August 27th 2010 @ 1:32pm | Report comment
As I have stated previous what an embarassing article from someone who has no idea about the world game and claims to sleep with one of the qatar bid members. What a joke. South Africa had qualified for a world cup previously with their own players. Qatar couldn’t even do it with more than half the squad filled with africans and people from other nations who were merely bought for their team. Plus Qatar is a two tier nation, the so called Qataris’ get everything and people who go to work there get treated like absolute rubbish. There is a website qatarsucks.com and it’s there for a reason, the nations itself is a disgrace, has done nothing for football and not in a million years would it deserve a football world cup. Qatar would also be a monumental failure in terms of sponsors and true fans of the game. I know not even the vast majority of the middle east support this bid because they see Qatar as been the ultimate ass kisser to the US housing their major base outside of the US and that is where all the commands to bomb the middle east come from. As I said Qatar is a disgrace not only to the arab people but to the whole of humanity and no way in heck do they ever ever EVER deserve a world cup. Learn your facts pal, because clearly you don’t know much at all.
August 27th 2010 @ 1:39pm
michael said | August 27th 2010 @ 1:39pm | Report comment
BTW Bin hammam also never backed Australia, he took a photo with our comeplay scarf on wow, hopefully he backs Australia inside but no way was he ever going to stray away from Qatar and come out in public backing our bid. Going against your country of birth is not something that’s seen in a positive light anywhere on the planet. Bin Hammam is a good AFC president and I know when the time comes he will do the right thing but for now he must back Qatar 110%.
August 27th 2010 @ 3:48pm
Michael Turner said | August 27th 2010 @ 3:48pm | Report comment
Mate, wow. completely uncalled for. Sleeping with a bid member? What are you 14?
And if anything was to be believed, what had South Africa done for soccer, nor USA in 1994. USA was chose for the sole purpose of MONEY and PR by FIFA. They admitted that. This is more or less the same.
August 26th 2010 @ 10:02am
TomC said | August 26th 2010 @ 10:02am | Report comment
The structure of this article seems to be largely based around the Wikipedia entry for Qatar’s world cup bid.
In any case, Blatter has not thrown his support behind Qatar’s bid. What he said was “”The Arab world deserves the World Cup and Qatar has a good chance to become the first country from the region to host it.” Personally, I would read Blatter’s comments as damning with faint praise.
The reason Blatter and the rest of FIFA are being coy about Qatar’s bid is that they have learnt from the mistakes of the Olympics. When the IOC rejected Doha’s bid for the 2016 games the Qatari bid leader claimed that the IOC had ‘closed the door on the Middle East’. FIFA don’t want to give the appearance of being hostile to the Arab world in any way. You only need to look at the oil money being poured into European clubs to understand why that might be the case.
FIFA will string Qatar along for a while but they have no chance of hosting the event.
August 26th 2010 @ 12:03pm
Michael Turner said | August 26th 2010 @ 12:03pm | Report comment
that’s because i wrote most of the Wikipedia article pertaining to the Qatar World Cup Bid. I am in contact with one of the bid members.
August 26th 2010 @ 10:30am
Tristan Rayner said | August 26th 2010 @ 10:30am | Report comment
I think the comments here are quite accurate reagrding Qatar’s chances.
My personal critical stumbling block is that Qatar’s population of just 1.7m is hardly the audience for a World Cup. FIFA always attempts to both satisfy the humerous “You had it last so now it’s our turn!” politics and also attempt to sell the game in the country.
Qatar might be an emerging nation economically, but that won’t be at the top of the list of features that FIFA attempt to capture through consideration over which nation should best hold the Cup.
Unfortunately, the same argument applies to the Australian bid – the Olympics looks to serve it’s own purposes and Australia is a world leader across many sports, hence Sydney being chosen. However, FIFA always have an agenda of further commercialising and gaining revenue.
Australia will need to play a good hand to convince FIFA that our fledging population with a broad range of sporting capital invested widely rather than singularly into Football is the best place for the World Cup. Good luck to us.
August 26th 2010 @ 10:59am
Victer said | August 26th 2010 @ 10:59am | Report comment
Well I hardly doubt South Africa was based on commercialisation but it does factor in for sure. This cup is between the US and AUS, if they want another crack at the big US market right now than it goes to them, if they are serious about adopting a rotation policy similar to the Olympics than it goes to us. Both countries will host an excellent tournament, the same cannot be said for Qatar in regards to activities outside of the world cup.
August 26th 2010 @ 11:26am
Tristan Rayner said | August 26th 2010 @ 11:26am | Report comment
Completely agreed Victer. You couldn’t blame FIFA for trying to crack the US again.
South Africa was more for promoting the game in Africa, showing that the continent isn’t some war ravaged thing like people think and inspiring a nation trying to move past many issues.
August 26th 2010 @ 11:26am
dasilva said | August 26th 2010 @ 11:26am | Report comment
I think another things that is missed is that FIFA believes we need about 40 odd training pitches. Are teams supposed to train in 40 degree heat or are they are going to build 40 indoor training facilities
August 26th 2010 @ 12:23pm
apaway said | August 26th 2010 @ 12:23pm | Report comment
Michael, in an earlier post you compared Qatar hosting the WC as similar to South Africa being awarded the 2010 tournament as a way of FIFA expanding the game. But where in Qatar would it expand to? South Africa is a large country with a big population and a huge particiaption rate. Qatar is smaller than most cities in Australia. I just don’t see how a country of that size could ever host the World Cup. I realise that they have the economic clout to do so but why on earth would Qatar need 12 indoor, 40-75000 capacity stadiums after the WC finishes?
BTW, Qatar did cause a stir in international football right here in Australia, by making the final of the 1981 World Youth Cup, eventually getting beaten by West Germany 4-0 in the final at a drenched SCG, after beating England 2-1 in the semi finals.
August 26th 2010 @ 3:46pm
Spiro Zavos said | August 26th 2010 @ 3:46pm | Report comment
Michael, you ask what Qatar is going to do with all the stadiums it needs for a Football World Cup, but far too many for a population of a million or so. The idea, apparently, is to donate the stadiums to African countries after the World Cup. The stadiums will somehow be demountables that can be taken down and re-assembled somewhere else. I don’t know how many votes Africa has in deciding the host nation but the prospect of getting brand new stadiums, only slightly used, must appeal to most of the nations on that continent.
That is, except South Africa, a nation that must be wondering what to do with its white elephant stadiums. Perhaps they could export them, too.
August 26th 2010 @ 3:52pm
Michael Turner said | August 26th 2010 @ 3:52pm | Report comment
It is directly out of their bid book. But it appealed to FIFA. And thats what seems to matter
August 26th 2010 @ 3:55pm
Realfootball said | August 26th 2010 @ 3:55pm | Report comment
Now that is very smart politics.
August 26th 2010 @ 4:27pm
Michael Turner said | August 26th 2010 @ 4:27pm | Report comment
Just Please FIFA. Now personally, I will state again, I am totally in support of the Australia Bid, It became apparent that there was not much info on the Qatar bid, so a comparison was needed
August 27th 2010 @ 4:04pm
The Special One said | August 27th 2010 @ 4:04pm | Report comment
Spiro here is an interesting article about the white elephants that have been left behind in sth africa
http://www.worldfootballinsider.com/Story.aspx?id=33639
August 26th 2010 @ 7:30pm
Chris K said | August 26th 2010 @ 7:30pm | Report comment
I can’t see this happening for obvious reasons in regards to stadiums and blah blah. But there is also the isssue in regards to the fact that Qatar is not the greatest place to visit. And also as far as I know, Qatar don’t recognize Israel as a country, Israel is a very real chance of getting into the world cup in the forseeable future, this could cause problems