By Jesse Dhillon
The 2022 Fifa World Cup is finally under way in Qatar, the first Muslim-led country to host this event. It follows a 12-year build-up that has seen criticism of the host country ramp up to a near-deafening crescendo of condemnation in the past few weeks.
How is it, mainly western commentators, have asked, that a tiny hot, sandy desert nation occupying less than 5,000 square miles on the Arabian peninsula, landed the world’s biggest sporting show?
“And they don’t like gay people and women” has been the message that has been echoed in headlines across the globe.
This barrage of criticism, again notably mainly in the western press, led to a fightback of sorts from the Qataris who have accused the West of naked racism — a claim seemingly backed by the Fifa president Gianni Infantino in an impassioned speech on the eve of the tournament that has cost Qatar more than £250bn.
Qataris say the West has been hypocritical in its coverage, pointing to the fact that Qatar is one of the biggest buyers of arms from the West. Indeed, Britain alone has approved arms sales of at least £540m to Qatar since 2015. Government ministers have boasted of winning nearly £1bn in World Cup deals while Qatar has some £40bn of investments in the UK including Heathrow airport and Barclays Bank.
Home to about 2.8 million people, 80 per cent of whom live in the capital city of Doha, Qatar is one of the richest countries in the world — an absolute monarchy since independence from Britain in 1972 and whose burgeoning economy is fuelled by the world’s biggest natural gas reserves.
Almost 90 per cent of the population are foreign born migrant workers, overwhelmingly male, coming from about 100 countries, with their plight likened to a form of modern-day slavery, as thousands have died building the infrastructure for the World Cup.
Their ability to move freely, to change jobs without permission from employers, arbitrary detention, withholding pay, confiscation of passports and travel documents, false charges and threats of deportation, and other mental, physical, and sometimes sexual abuse, has been well-documented.
The Aspire Academy, a Qatari government-owned athletic training facility, has come under scrutiny for international trafficking of child athletes as well, among other scandals.
Amid this widespread global criticism, Qatar has introduced labour reforms in recent years, such as instituting a basic minimum wage and new anti-trafficking laws.
The country is ruled by a semi-constitutional monarchy, the fabulously rich Al Thani family. Qatar is largely governed under traditional Sharia, with secular civil law mixed in.
Society is largely a patriarchal and hierarchical Sunni Muslim set up where people live in a conservative Bedouin culture reflected by the strict and austere Salafi brand of Islam that most people follow.
There is freedom of religion and migrant workers, mainly from the Indian subcontinent, have brought Hinduism and Sikhism with them while churches are also not that uncommon.
Sharia is derived from Islamic traditions. In the Qatari legal system, homosexuality and adultery can be punishable by death, and flogging is a potential punishment for alcohol consumption or illicit sexual relations. Stoning is a legal punishment in Qatar, though it has never been used.
Women are generally second-class citizens in Qatar. Though women can vote and run for public office, considerable restrictions continue to affect women’s independence to marry, travel, work, and study without permission from male guardians.
Unsurprisingly, the Qatari state is particularly sensitive to the way international media report on these issues. Under the terms of deliberately ambiguous filming permits issued by Qatari authorities, broadcasters felt they were effectively barred from filming accommodations housing migrant workers and wider Qatari life.
Many rules regarding international media have been left intentionally open, leaving some grey area for Qatari officials to harass journalists for any number of reasons if they choose to do so. This largely serves to produce a chilling effect on journalists under pressure to self-censor to avoid trouble with authorities who will certainly be monitoring reporters by various means, including tracking apps and secret police.
The Qatari state has taken great pains to present an image of Qatar as a modern and multicultural nation, while continuing to adhere to traditionalist and conservative cultural and social norms. The 2022 Fifa World Cup gives Qatar its greatest opportunity yet to promote a positive representation of a country that until this event had largely been overlooked and nondescript to the general western public.
But Qatar has been constantly accused of “sportwashing” in the run up to the World Cup. This is the practice by governments or organisations to use big sporting events to improve their reputations, often at monumental expense, such as bribery and extortion.
It is essentially a form of soft power on the world stage, used by states to draw media attention away from poor human rights records, corruption or other scandals.
Recent notable examples include Russia’s hosting of the 2014 Winter Olympics and 2018 Fifa World Cup, or the new Saudi Arabian Formula One Grand Prix. The practice goes back decades, with the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany the most infamous example.
Qatar has been especially busy expanding its reach and influence in the world of football. Over the past decade or so, state-owned Qatar Airways has been a major sponsor of several of the world’s biggest football clubs, including Paris Saint-Germain, FC Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and Boca Juniors. Under their sponsorship, these clubs have increased their global profile as fashionable brands attracting the sport’s biggest stars, while simultaneously growing Qatar Airways’ status for jet-setting luxury.
As these Qatari-sponsored clubs enjoy greater success, researchers have found that fan loyalties to the sponsor increase. Along with team sponsorships, Qatar has been able to cultivate relationships with star athletes.
David Beckham signed a short-term deal to play for Qatari-sponsored Paris Saint-Germain in 2013, and since then has been effectively utilised as an ambassador for Qatar, extolling its virtues as a modern, and football-friendly destination and investment opportunity.
The event certainly promises to be an exciting and enthralling affair, as events of this kind often are. But after the winner is declared, the stadiums empty, and the fans go home, Qatari society will be left to continue navigating this balancing act between modernism and traditionalism.
The risk is that the outside world allows the ephemeral glamour and glory of a sporting spectacle to smother the very real repression and tensions that afflict ordinary Qataris every day.
Based on research by Amardeep Bassey
