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Is Qatar able to host the World Cup?
Rayhan Uddin
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 15:45
As vital dates go, 18 December is up there for Qatar.
It marks the nation’s nationwide day, celebrating the unification of the small Gulf peninsula in 1878, when founder Jassim bin Mohammed al Thani introduced collectively native tribes right into a united entity for the primary time.
On this public vacation, residents beautify their vehicles and homes with flags, whereas a grandiose fireworks show and parade takes place alongside the Corniche waterfront in Doha, the capital.
This 12 months, the date additionally marks the ultimate of the primary ever Fifa Arab Cup, the soccer event which Qatar has hosted over the previous three weeks in preparation for subsequent 12 months’s World Cup, the primary version of the quadrennial competitors to be held within the Center East.
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One 12 months from now, the commemorative day will coincide with the World Cup last itself, placing Qatar centre stage in what’s more likely to be one of many greatest and most watched sporting occasions in historical past.
Fifa, world soccer’s governing physique, estimates that greater than 3.5 billion individuals tuned in to the final World Cup, held in Russia in 2018, and {that a} world viewers of 1.1 billion watched the ultimate between France and Croatia.
However one other poignant world observance takes place on 18 December: the United Nations’ Worldwide Migrants Day, marking the date when the UN Basic Meeting in 1990 adopted a conference supposed to advertise and defend the rights of the planet’s rising migrant workforce.
Overseas employees make up practically 90 % of Qatar’s 2.9 million inhabitants.
With many of the stadiums and far of the infrastructure essential to host the event constructed because it was awarded to the gas-rich emirate in 2010, there would merely be no World Cup with out the toil of its migrant employees, a few of which has come at a deadly value.
With one 12 months to go till the ultimate day of the primary ever World Cup in an Arab nation, simply how prepared is Qatar?
From transportation, to migrant employee situations, homosexual rights and footballing environment, Center East Eye went to Doha to seek out out simply how ready the Gulf state is.
Smallest ever host braced for fan inflow
Strolling round central Doha, it typically feels as if the World Cup is rather a lot additional away.
Massive swathes of the capital are underneath development. Drainage is being put in, new buildings are being accomplished, roads and walkways are being widened. The air is stuffed with sandy smog and it’s exhausting to navigate town.
Deciding precisely the place to stroll is hard: do you slalom between the piles of bricks and concrete that crowd the pavement, or stroll on primary roads on the mercy of vehicles zooming agonisingly near pedestrians?
Doha is a metropolis developed with the automobile in thoughts. Nevertheless it’s exhausting to think about that such a state of affairs can be purposeful – or tolerated – at a World Cup, the place over one million followers are anticipated.
“There are a variety of infrastructure tasks by entities inside Qatar. All these roadworks can be completed in the summertime,” Fatima Al-Nuaimi, communications director for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup Supreme Committee for Supply & Legacy, advised Center East Eye.
She insists that a lot of the work is already full: main expressways have been upgraded and expanded, and areas such because the Corniche promenade have been made extra pedestrian pleasant.
However the roadworks and closures typically create congestion, main to finish standstills. For taxi drivers attempting to get passengers to and from video games on the Arab Cup, the state of affairs is irritating.
“They wish to host these tournaments, however there is no such thing as a organisation,” says an Uber driver of Bangladeshi origin. “The place is the signage and communications telling us which roads to keep away from, and the place the perfect place is to drop individuals close to stadiums?”
Organisers are banking on a wider uptake of public transport forward of subsequent 12 months’s event, to keep away from congestion within the smallest nation ever to host a World Cup.
Faculty holidays will even be introduced ahead, giving younger individuals an opportunity to attend video games and lowering the variety of vehicles on the street.
“For Qataris, everyone seems to be used to getting their very own vehicles, however we have now launched a public behavioural change marketing campaign for utilizing extra public transportation,” Nuaimi says.
To assist fulfil that dedication, the Doha Metro was inaugurated in 2019. It’s supposed to be the principle type of transport for followers subsequent 12 months. On the Arab Cup, the underground prepare system runs easily, other than the odd inevitable lengthy queue after video games.
Qatar’s measurement – nearer resembling an Olympic host metropolis than a World Cup nation – brings with it challenges not just for transportation, but in addition lodging.
Housing over one million soccer followers in a rustic with a inhabitants of lower than three million was by no means going to be a straightforward feat.
“We don’t wish to construct lodges that may stay like a white elephant, and greater than the capability that the nation wants,” Nuaimi says. “So we got here up with modern options.”
She mentions short-term floating lodges, with cruise ships particularly offering 4,000 rooms. She additionally highlights the concept of “glamping” within the desert to present followers a style of the area’s conventional nomadic life-style.
Total, Qatar goals to make 130,000 rooms out there in the course of the event, of which 60,000 can be villas and flats managed by Accor, the biggest hospitality firm in Europe.
With lower than 30,000 lodge rooms within the nation, the floating lodges, flats and different “modern” approaches can be essential.
A Qatari authorities official, who spoke on situation of anonymity, advised MEE that the small measurement of the state would convey advantages for the World Cup, lowering the necessity to take flights and making it simpler for followers to attend a number of video games.
The longest distance between two stadiums, from Al-Bayt within the space of Al-Khor, to Al-Janoub in Al-Wakrah, is 70km, and would take simply 50 minutes by automobile. Seven of the eight venues are inside a half hour drive of central Doha, guaranteeing that the capital can be full of followers of each single staff competing.
“Followers can be arriving at completely different instances all through the event. We don’t have any main issues in regards to the lodging and transport. It is all been fastidiously deliberate, and is being examined and realized from on the Arab Cup,” the official mentioned.
Migrant employees elevate issues
Qatar’s readiness for internet hosting soccer’s greatest event has centred not solely on infrastructure and planning, but in addition on the rights and civil liberties of these inside its borders.
Internet hosting one of many world’s most watched sporting occasions comes with added scrutiny, and for the Gulf nation the highlight has targeted on two points: migrant employees and LGBTQ+ rights.
Doha’s method to each points has dominated headlines within the decade because it was introduced as World Cup host, and will proceed to check authorities for the approaching 12 months.
The image for migrant employees has lengthy been troubling.
Lately, scores of development employees in Qatar haven’t been paid on time, labourers have been topic to the exploitative kafala system that ties them to their employers, and the situations inside which migrants work and dwell have been broadly condemned. There have additionally been studies of uninvestigated deaths linked to unsafe working environments.
Worldwide consideration on these points has prompted a response from Qatari authorities, with intensive labour reforms introduced lately.
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These have included ending the kafala system, introducing a minimal wage, stopping passport confiscation by employers and limiting out of doors working hours throughout summer season months, when temperatures can usually exceed 40C.
“The World Cup has woken us up,” the Qatari official says. “Ten years in the past, among the accomodation for visitor employees was unacceptable. We’d be the primary to confess that.”
Nuaimi strikes an identical tone. “We’re utilizing this World Cup as a catalyst,” she says. “There was a variety of enchancment for the final decade with regards to employees’ welfare.”
However implementation of those reforms stays an issue. MEE spoke with quite a few migrant employees who mentioned that these new insurance policies weren’t at all times adopted by corporations.
Two employees, one in development and one other in hospitality, mentioned that their passports had been at the moment being held by their employer, which is prohibited underneath Qatar’s new guidelines.
One worker at a lodge mentioned that to earn the minimal wage, he was being compelled by his employer to work time beyond regulation hours for which he was not being compensated. He added that he tried to depart his job, however his employer wouldn’t write him an enough reference.
Qatari officers advised MEE that issues wouldn’t change in a single day, and it will take time for corporations of all sizes to fall into line. Additionally they harassed that the federal government had simplied methods by which employees might elevate grievances.
When advised about these complaints techniques, a number of employees advised MEE that voicing issues was simpler mentioned than completed, and that they feared for his or her visa standing when pursuing authorized motion.
A number of migrant employees did really feel that most of the reforms had been helpful, significantly the ban on working open air in the course of the hottest hours in summer season. Many spoke positively in regards to the Qatari authorities, significantly in relation to free and accessible healthcare.
MEE was given an official tour of “Labour Metropolis” – a migrant camp which homes 70,000 employees on the outskirts of Doha. The rooms and communal areas seen by MEE seemed to be clear, nicely sorted and compliant with authorities insurance policies.
The camp is extremely securitised, with cameras fitted all through the ability, and several other guards patrolling every entrance to the advanced. Camp workers attribute this to security causes, and sought to guarantee us that they’ve “nothing to cover”.
Whereas MEE discovered no infractions at Labour Metropolis, the testimonies of a number of employees across the nation counsel that the fact on the bottom has not at all times mirrored the introduced reforms.
“The overwhelming majority of Qatar’s migrant employees proceed to undergo abuses by the hands of their employers,” Hiba Zayadin, MENA researcher at Human Rights Watch, advised MEE.
“Employers proceed to evade accountability for violating the nation’s home labour legal guidelines and rules, and the state continues to largely fail migrant employees after they do muster up the braveness to hunt redress for the abuses they undergo.”
She mentioned that actual enchancment would solely happen as soon as the kafala system was “dismantled in its entirety” and as soon as employees had been allowed to affix commerce unions and converse out in regards to the abuses they undergo.
LGBTQ+ followers welcome, however reform unlikely
On LGBTQ+ rights, Qatar’s method seems to be much less about reform and extra about rhetoric.
Final month, the world’s solely overtly homosexual male top-flight footballer, Australian Josh Cavallo, mentioned that he was scared to go to the World Cup due to Qatar’s report on homosexual rights.
“To know that [the World Cup] is in a rustic that doesn’t assist homosexual individuals and places us prone to our personal life, that does scare me and makes me re-evaluate – is my life extra essential than doing one thing actually good in my profession?” the Adelaide United defender mentioned.
Similar intercourse acts between consenting adults in non-public are a legal offence in Qatar punishable by as much as seven years in jail.
“All people is welcome no matter their race, faith, gender, sexual orientation,” Nuaimi says, assuring that soccer followers and gamers don’t have anything to fret about.
Nasser Al-Khater, chief govt of the Supreme Committee, made related assurances to CNN final month. He added that public shows of affection had been typically frowned upon inside Qatari tradition, whether or not from gay or heterosexual {couples}.
“Whereas the federal government has assured potential guests it’s going to welcome LGBTQ+ vacationers, for LGBTQ+ Qataris, overtly expressing their sexuality just isn’t an possibility,” says Zayadin of HRW.
“Freedom of expression and nondiscrimination based mostly on sexual orientation and gender identification must be assured for all Qataris, not simply spectators and vacationers flocking to Qatar for the World Cup.”
When prompted about whether or not the World Cup would result in reforms for LGBTQ+ Qataris, Nuaimi is much less assured.
“All people has completely different beliefs and completely different views with regards to socially delicate subjects,” she says. “What we’re asking from individuals and all of those communities is to respect the tradition and the custom of the nation itself, and to simply accept us as they’re asking for us to simply accept them.”
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The difficulty of homosexual rights has been a scorching matter in Qatar over the previous two weeks, after former Egyptian footballer Mohamed Aboutrika took to Qatar’s beIN Sports activities to criticise the English Premier League’s “rainbow laces” LGBTQ+ marketing campaign.
“It’s a harmful ideology and it’s changing into nasty, and individuals are not ashamed of it anymore,” Aboutrika mentioned. “They may inform you that homosexuality is ‘human rights’. No, it’s not human rights, it’s in truth towards humanity.”
The feedback had been broadly condemned on social media. A 55-year-old Egyptian resident of Doha advised MEE that he thought the feedback had been ill-timed and did the World Cup host nation no favours.
“BeIN Sports activities are in a tough place. The human rights organisations will criticise them for not firing Aboutrika. However Qataris will criticise them in the event that they do fireplace him,” he mentioned, noting that many locals had come to the pundit’s defence.
For a lot of followers, and even soccer coaches, criticism of Qatar over its human rights report has felt unfair.
“The place was all this scrutiny when Russia hosted the final World Cup? The state of affairs for homosexual individuals there’s not good in any respect,” says Ahmed, a 31-year-old Qatari fan attending the opening recreation of the Arab Cup.
“Life is like this. You have got some jealous individuals generally,” Madjid Bougherra, a former participant and now coach of Algeria’s A staff, tells MEE. “It’s the primary time ever that an Arab nation takes this competitors. Possibly some individuals are not completely satisfied about that.”
Qatar scout footballers from throughout world
On the soccer pitch itself, issues seem like going extra easily for Qatar.
The host nation, nicknamed the Maroons, did nicely on the Arab Cup, successful all their group video games and hammering the United Arab Emirates 5-0 within the knockout levels. They had been narrowly overwhelmed 2-1 within the semi-finals by an under-strength Algeria staff lacking its Europe-based stars.
In a 12 months’s time, there’ll be a lot consideration on the Qatari taking part in squad.
The Gulf state is the one nation within the trendy period of the World Cup to have gained internet hosting rights – incomes automated qualification – with out having ever beforehand reached the event by the qualifiers. (Italy was awarded the second ever World Cup in 1934 having not performed within the inaugural event in Uruguay 4 years earlier.)
However they are going to go into the event as Asian champions, following their success on the 2019 Asian Cup within the UAE, by which they beat Japan within the last, successful all seven of their matches.
Qatar had been invited by Uefa to be a “ghost staff” within the European qualifying event for the World Cup. Additionally they competed on the 2019 Copa America event for South American nations, and the 2021 Gold Cup for North American nations.
Over the previous decade, the nation has invested closely within the Aspire Academy in Doha, with the ambition of growing top-class footballing expertise.
It has additionally launched into a naturalisation initiative (one thing very not often supplied to international nationals in different professions) for footballers scouted from internationally. Ten of its squad members for the Arab Cup had been born exterior the nation.
The progress is evident to see, they usually’ll fancy their possibilities at giving larger nations a run for his or her cash subsequent 12 months.
Noisy neighbours convey the social gathering
The small Gulf emirate just isn’t a rustic with a historic footballing custom, globally or inside the area.
Many have prompt that if the World Cup was to come back to the Arab world for the primary time, then why not Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia and even Saudi Arabia, who’ve all certified for the event on a number of events.
Whereas Qatar’s video games on the Arab Cup inevitably drew the biggest crowds, the environment was typically subdued, with solely very small pockets of followers across the stadium making their voices heard.
Huge moments in video games result in quick and momentary cheers, echoing the environment of short-form cricket matches.
In the meantime, when the likes of Algeria, Egypt and Morocco play, even with stadiums removed from full, the environment is electrical.
Moroccan followers mimic the Viking Thunderclap made well-known by the Icelandic nationwide staff, with the booming applause reverberating round Qatar’s air-conditioned Schooling Metropolis Stadium throughout a match towards Jordan.
Seasoned Egyptian soccer followers sing the nights away, together with the well-known “Ya Trika” chant lauding their exiled icon Aboutrika.
‘Arab nations want to point out extra solidarity, and perhaps the Arab Cup can be that last piece of the jigsaw’
–Yacine Brahimi, Algerian footballer
Qatar could have supplied the high-level services and stadia, but it surely was different Arab nations who introduced the social gathering over the previous month. For the a lot larger event subsequent 12 months, the hosts will hope their noisy regional neighbours return.
“The World Cup has by no means been referred to by us as a Qatari event. We’ve at all times referred to it as an Arab occasion,” the Qatari official says.
He factors to the designs of the stadium as a living proof: Lusail is a bowl, signifying Arab meals and hospitality; Al-Bayt is within the form of a tent, in homage to the Bedouin life-style; and Al-Thumama is a gahfiya, a woven hat worn throughout the Center East.
Algerian ahead Yacine Brahimi hopes that the Arab Cup can foster solidarity within the area forward of the World Cup.
“I feel that sport can be utilized as leverage to enhance conditions and enhance relationships,” he advised MEE.
“Arab nations want to point out extra solidarity, and perhaps the Arab Cup can be that last piece of the jigsaw. The World Cup – with the completely different cultures, completely different nationalities, completely different religions, completely different creeds – will assist us enhance the state of play.”
Nuaimi believes that no matter whether or not Arab groups qualify for subsequent 12 months’s event (many is not going to, because of the restricted variety of spots for Asian and African groups), followers from the area will make the quick journey to Qatar.
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“In Brazil, you may see a excessive attendance from Latin America because of the geographic proximity of the event,” she says. “So for us we can be anticipating individuals from the Center East.”
It was simply 4 years in the past that a few of Qatar’s regional neighbours, specifically Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt, lower off all diplomatic ties with Doha, accusing it of meddling in its inner affairs and supporting terrorism, which Qatar strenuously denied.
Buying and selling ties and regional journey had been halted and households had been break up aside. The blockade resulted in January, and cooperation can be welcome forward of the World Cup.
The Qatari official mentioned that Doha didn’t deny entry to atypical individuals from the blockading nations in the course of the rift, and that Saudi soccer followers loved the Fifa Membership World Cup in 2019, which was additionally hosted within the metropolis.
“Once we initially opened the volunteering programme for Fifa occasions, over 250,000 individuals expressed curiosity. Essentially the most purposes got here from Egypt and Saudi Arabia – at a time when the web site was blocked in these nations,” he mentioned.
Throughout the opening ceremony of the Arab Cup, the area as an entire was celebrated, with performances from stars from Egypt, Iraq and past.
It’s that spirit – that sense of the broader Arab world – that Qataris hope will make their nation a value World Cup host.
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