7 Reasons Qatar Won’t Host the 2022 World Cup
FIFA Executive Committee member Theo Zwanziger said today he believed the committee would decide to overturn the decision to have Qatar host the 2022 World Cup. While nothing has been officially declared, this is the latest sign the troubled plan will not be coming together.
Though FIFA (the Fédération Internationale de Football Association) initially tried to tout the decision to have Qatar host as a triumph for globalism – granting the honor to a Middle Eastern country, rather than to one of the traditional superpowers – almost immediately this decision was met with an outcry of concerns.
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Weather
The first and most obvious concern is the weather, and at the end of the day this will be the one that forces FIFA’s hand. The tournament has always been held during the summer, when most of the major soccer leagues are on break. Temperatures in Qatar during the summer can reach a scorching 125 F°. In the end, health concerns, not only for the players but for the tourists, will be the plan’s (stated) undoing.
Infrastructure
Qatar certainly has the money for the 2022 World Cup, but the actual stadiums still need to be built, and in some cases, so do the “cities” where the stadiums would be located. The need to build sporting facilities swiftly ultimately led to the humanitarian concerns that are probably the unspoken reason for the probable cancellation.
Humanitarian Concerns
Since Qatar only has a population of 278,000 (and many are wealthy, making Qatar the nation with the wealthiest population per capita), most of the labor to build the facilities was being imported from poor countries such as Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. Due to the long hours of labor plus the extreme weather conditions, 1,200 workers had already died by May of 2014. At that rate, the total death toll for the project would reach 4,000. Additionally, there have been allegations that workers have had their passports claimed by Qatari immigration, effectively making these people prisoners/slaves.
Accusations of Corruption
Many people suspected there was something fishy about the situation from the start. As more and more people came forward to say that they’d received bribes or favors in exchange for their vote, it became clear there was serious corruption involved in the decision to award the cup to Qatar. Though “health concerns” will be the stated reason, rest assured the ever-growing scandal (and its PR fall out) played a hefty part in FIFA’s decision making.
Logistics
Beyond just the challenges of constructing sporting facilities and supporting infrastructure from scratch, the 2022 Cup also faced the various logistical problems caused by the extreme weather. Solutions such as air-conditioned stadiums or holding the final event in winter – requiring the leagues to rearrange their schedules both for that year and the year around it – had been suggested. The air-conditioning plan turned out to be a pipe dream, and the absolute chaos that would have been caused by a move to a winter Cup would have been disastrous for almost every league in the world (each of them a multimillion dollar business of its own).
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Money
One of the more sensitive aspects of the World Cup 2022 plan was the challenges presented by hosting the tourney in a Muslim country. Beyond the annoyance of the fans who would want a frosty cold one while watching the game in 120-degree heat, there would be the tremendous loss of revenue from both concessions and advertising from sponsors such as Budweiser. In the 2014 World Cup, it was pressure from Budweiser that ultimately led to a change in the law governing alcohol sales at games.
Beyond that, Qatar considers homosexuality a criminal offense – meaning that any gay players, coaches, fans, staff members, etc., would risk imprisonment merely by entering the country. As the Ray Rice scandal in the NFL has proven, sports can no longer ignore “liberal” concerns without facing a serious fan backlash.
ISIS
If mainstream Muslim beliefs were already causing difficulty with planning, the ever-growing threat of terrorism in the unstable region also must be a concern. Granted, ultra-wealthy Qatar might not be the ideal hotbed for terrorism, but the country has supported ISIS and other terrorist groups. So it’s certainly possible that a massive global event like the World Cup would be a potential target.
This becomes even more troublesome when you consider that the Israeli team could very well qualify for the Cup, but would be unable to legally enter the country and would almost certainly be an obvious target for those with extremist views.
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