Coming out in defence of Qatar to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Let's leave aside the allegations, none of which have been proven, and examine why Qatar and others deserve to host the World Cup. (I'll ignore FIFA as well which is riddled with corruption which even they agree with considering the number of resignations, suspension and lifetime bans handed out)
Qatar sits in a place that is uncomfortably hot in the summer when the WC is normally held as do a large number of other countries, so should that mean they are excluded from holding the WC forever? That sounds unfair to me. In nearly every country in the world football is the major sport and each country should get a chance to bid and host a WC with an equal chance.
Let's look at the benefits of a WC in Qatar.
1. The possibility of watching 3 matches live in one day. (never been done before)
2. They have the money to do it when most of the world is in recession
3. It will help,the development of the country and give it a purpose and direction
So I say let them have it. If you don't like the summer let them change it to winter or let them demonstrate the cooling technology but don't say they can never host it. That sounds like an exclusive club for hosting and football is the world game.
As a football mad Englishman living in the UAE, I am very much interested in the developments for the Qatar World Cup (if it happens).
ReplyDeleteI have been to numerous World Cups and Euros. FIFA (and UEFA) don't care about the average fan who actually have to pay for their trip out of their own pocket and don't have private jets and cars to ferry them around. Otherwise they wouldn't have awarded World Cups to South Africa and Brazil. So I very much agree with your point 1 although there would need to be (say) 6pm, 9pm and midnight kick-offs due to the daytime heat.
However Point 2 ignores that other countries scored far higher in the technical bids and were happy to fund the development. As these countries have developed infrastructure and stadia, the expense is clearly far less.
Point 3 implies that without the World Cup, Qatar's development will be hindered. With the money you mention I doubt it needs it to continue on the fast track to a more diversified economy.
Regarding the last paragraph, I don’t disagree that they shouldn’t have been excluded from the bidding but should have been clear it was on the basis of having it in Winter as this “cooling technology” is still way off being developed. This would disrupt both the standard football season and the ones before and after. If, after all that, it had been awarded, I may have been more enthused about a Qatari WC. At the moment, I envisage the football being played at a walking pace as those of us who continue to exercise outdoors in the summer in the Middle East know that even at 10pm it’s very tough.
Do you know if any of the contracts for stadia have been awarded yet?
I believe that a lot of people (myself included) feel strongly enough that apart from the fact that Qatar has never even qualified for a World Cup let alone actually having competed in one, the primary reason they're doing it is to show off their wealth & any country hosting it for that reason shouldn't be doing so because that is definitely not in keeping with the spirit of football globally, which is often referred to as the common man's game, which anyone of us who has lived here knows for a fact that WC 2022 is unlikely to be...They have the money & apparently a vision for their country,what has hosting or not hosting the WC have anything to do with that?! Do they need to host a WC to have a world class airport (as opposed to the current cattle shed) or a world class,or even ordinary public transport network or other basic civic infrastructure (think public libraries open to citizens & residents, think community swimming pools in various parts of the country, think green parks( loads of them!) with facilities & I could go on but you get the point...so really,do they need to be hosting a WC to have all this in place? The answer is an emphatic NO...there were many more deserving countries who bid, with all the above in place aside from meeting all or most of the specific requirements for a WC & yet,the bid with the weakest technical capability was awarded the tournament...for the sake of football,let's hope this new, apparently independent investigative body can unearth any wrongdoing, in the event there was any,in the awarding of this bid & take suitable action (which ought to be revoking the rights.).
ReplyDeleteOut of interest, how does it look now, 3 years later, in the wake of the FIFA allegations and 1,200 dead on the construction sites, already?
ReplyDeleteNot sure where you get your 1,200 dead figure from, the reality is nowhere near that. There is two I can think of in 6 years.
Deletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33019838
Delete"So is the figure of 1,200 Qatar World Cup deaths just meaningless? No, says Tim Noonan. He denies the ITUC came up with the figure just to get headlines. In fact he thinks the real figure may well be higher."
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-migrant-workers-dying-qatar
"There is widespread doubt about the accuracy of death figures previously put out by the Qatari government, which does not publish regular independently-verified statistics on worker-related injuries and fatalities. It’s true to say that at least 1,200 workers from India and Nepal alone have died in Qatar since 2010, based on figures released by the local embassies of both countries. We don’t know how many workers die in industrial accidents each year. We don’t know if the figure is more or less than countries that are not hosting a World Cup. We don’t know which exactly precisely which medical conditions are killing the most migrants.
We don’t know these things because Qatar isn’t telling us".
So the answer would be to just provide the statistics, wouldn't it?
Well the reporting in the Oil and Gas Industry and on World Cup sites is world class which are the two major areas in the country at the moment. Despite having safety standards equal to anything in the west it is impossible to prevent 100% of accidents. People do stupid stuff sometimes, no matter the safety protocols and how much training you give someone. In both sectors the number of worker related deaths is comparable to anything in the west.
Delete1,200 people have died in 7 years from India and Nepal, well it's a fact of life that people die. Happens all the time, everywhere in the world. Let's look at those statistics and say the deaths of split equally between those two countries, so 600 each. That's 85 deaths per year say for Indians. Sounds terrible yes? Well the population of Indians is approx 500,000 in Qatar, so that makes percentage wise a death rate of 0.00017% per year. I've just looked up the death rate in India and for the last year they have figures, (2014) it works out at 0.007%. So statistically you could say that Indians are less likely to die in Qatar than in India through any cause.
The ILO has even entered into an agreement with Qatar over migrant labour rights and this has been hailed as a positive step. Qatar has come a long way in the last 10 years and I do not know any government in the Middle East or Asia that would work with the ILO and other labour organisations in this manner.
Deletehttps://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/10/qatar-un-agreement-to-tackle-migrant-labour-abuse-offers-path-to-reform/