By Gabriel Landrein.
The highly-coveted World Cup trophy in front of the Doha skyline (Photo credit: Marca)
The upcoming World Cup will be played between November 20th and December 18th in Qatar. World Cup locations are bid on and awarded years in advance, and in this case, Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup in 2010 by then-FIFA President Sepp Blatter (Switzerland). Despite the many concerns surrounding the viability of Qatar hosting a World Cup, the allure to Blatter of being the first FIFA President to award a World Cup to an Arab country was too good to be true. This, combined with the fact that Qatar is one of the top ten richest countries in the world, seemed to make it an attractive location for a future World Cup. For Blatter and FIFA, it may have seemed easier to deal with an authoritarian government with total decision-making power, as the Emir of Qatar, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad al Thani currently has, than a democratic government with a slower decision-making process.
The authoritarian regime makes it easier to build the infrastructure needed for the World Cup, but it is having disastrous consequences for Qatar. Many countries, such as Spain and England, already have the infrastructure needed to host a World Cup, and the additions they would have to make are minimal. Countries like these already boast a robust lineup of stadiums because of their rich domestic leagues, and have strong tourist infrastructure, with a wide array of hotels, public transportation and restaurants. However, Qatar’s main soccer league, the Qatar Stars League, only has 12 teams, and out of these, only two have stadiums with a capacity of more than 40,000. By comparison, Russia (the host of the last World Cup in 2018), has 10 stadiums with a capacity of over 40,000 people. Considering the 2018 World Cup had an average attendance per game of around 47,000, it is clear that from the start, Qatar lacked the stadium infrastructure needed to host a World Cup, let alone all the other tourist infrastructure needed.
The logical solution to this problem was to build, and build, and build. Qatar has built 7 new stadiums, 1 airport, a metro system, new road infrastructure, and over 100 new hotels. The eight stadiums used for the World Cup will have a capacity of at least 40,000, with Al Bayt Stadium holding 60,000, and Lusail Stadium, where most of the games will take place, having 80,000 available seats. Many of these new stadiums are breathtaking in their modern architecture, but it is important to remember these soccer palaces did not materialize out of thin air. Given that Qatar is tiny (4,483 mi2, about the size of Connecticut), and has a population of just 2.9 million, it needed to bring in laborers from elsewhere for the massive construction job needed in preparation for the World Cup.
Construction workers at a stadium work-site (Photo credit: NBC News)
According to the Qatari Government, 30,000 foreign laborers from surrounding countries such as Bangladesh, India and Nepal have been brought in just to build the stadiums. There have been 37 official deaths directly linked to stadium construction, and many more have died of so-called ‘natural causes’. The official death toll of foreign migrant workers since Qatar won their bid for the World Cup is over 6500, and it is likely that many of these deaths were directly linked to World Cup construction projects. In addition to the deaths, there have been protests over inadequate working conditions such as the inability to join unions, unpaid or delayed paychecks, and having to work under extreme heat (summer temperatures range from 95° to 113° Fahrenheit). This all-consuming need to build the adequate infrastructure in time for the World Cup has led Qatar down a dark path of worker abuse, mysterious workplace deaths and international scrutiny.
In addition to the lack of infrastructure and alleged human rights abuses, a World Cup in Qatar doesn’t make much sense from a sporting perspective. Normally, international competitions are played in the summer months, after domestic leagues around the world are over. Players normally get a short break between the end of national leagues, and then join their national teams for the summer competitions. Afterward, players get a longer break, before resuming national competitions again in late August or early September. However, due to the extreme summer heat in Qatar, the World Cup needs to be played in late fall, almost winter. This completely upends normal soccer scheduling, making for a more grueling year for players and coaches alike.
To be able to squeeze it all in, domestic leagues started much earlier than usual, with Ligue 1 (France) starting on August 5th, over two weeks earlier than the 2021 season started. To accommodate the first World Cup game on November 20th, the (first) final matchday in Europe’s leagues will be played in mid-November, and will only resume in late December, after the World Cup is over. In addition to the logistical nightmare of clubs losing their players for almost a month in the middle of the season, this extended break also brings a host of worries for national and international teams alike. Will players give 100% effort in the weeks leading up to the World Cup, or will some be wary of injuring themselves and missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime? Teams headed into the break with momentum domestically may find themselves losing all that progress once the leagues resume, and collapse post-World Cup. The scenes of club-level coaches fuming as their best players get injured during the World Cup are readily imaginable, and losing key players for half the season ahead will surely negatively impact the performance of many teams. Players and coaches alike are facing unprecedented dilemmas, and even though no one really knows what will happen, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where everyone comes out of the international break happy.
Overall, it seems an ill-brought decision to award Qatar a World Cup, and the combination of human and sporting costs brought on by the competition seem to overshadow what a World Cup should be all about normally: hope, joy, and wondrous soccer unfolding before our eyes.
Newly-built Lusail Stadium, home to many of the 2022 World Cup games. (Photo credit: Dezeen)
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