“Qatar 2022” officially started yesterday in Doha. History is being made since yesterday in Qatar!
Qatar was awarded the World Cup back in 2010. Since then, they have spent $220 billion: They built seven huge stadiums and repaired one; a new airport, a metro system, a series of roads and about 100 new hotels. An entire city has been constructed around the stadium which, will host the final match.
However, these are not what is making history: “Qatar 2022” is the first World Cup to be hosted in a Muslim nation, and this is the history!
Qatar was awarded to host the FIFA World Cup in 2010. Since then our fellow human beings are so very much interested in these two points: many Muslims have been asking their scholars on the internet what is the ruling on the professional pursuit of football (soccer), and many others have been inquiring about the online and offline sources to find out if alcohol would be sold during the tournament’s 64 matches. These are the two most asked questions on Google in relation to the World Cup.
No, it is not permissible to issue a ruling on playing football without knowing the nature of the game in advance because it would result in “fitnah” (detractor, defamation, aspersion); and yes, you may purchase alcoholic beverages in a Qatar hotel or restaurant if it is not restricted in your country!
Qatar is making FIFA history not only because it is a Muslim country, but because it is the smallest country ever to host the world’s biggest sporting event. If you Google the list of countries that hosted the previous tournaments, you will better appreciate what Sheikh Tamim ibn Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar and his father, Sheikh Hamad, after Hamad abdicated in his favor in 2013, have done for the Muslim world. It is a fact that most of the money Qatar spent had in reality been added to its national wealth; those hotels and stadiums will be now permanently among Qatar’s treasures. However, Qatar has so far invested millions of dollars in hospitality and other services that neither FIFA nor the competing teams are going to reimburse. Moreover, Qatar is spending another $1.7 billion on operating costs, which would partially be covered by FIFA; but FIFA is not going to share a dime of the total $4.7 billion it is going to make from the international television broadcast license fees. Experts estimate that the revenue Qatar will be “making” in this event will not exceed $1 billion.
It is true that Qatar’s gross domestic product (GDP) this year is around $180 billion, and probably Sheikh Tamim had all that money his country has been spending for the last 12 years in his bank account; we do not have any worries about whether the Qataris have to cut down on any of their expenses. But still, $220 billion is a hefty sum of money.
Every penny of it, I think, is worth spending because Qatar has not only obtained roads, hotels, stadiums and parks, but it accumulated a huge sum of “soft power.” Encyclopedias define the new term “smart power” in international relations as the combination of hard power and soft power strategies.
Qatar is not only the world’s largest natural gas producer, with the highest per-capita income, etc., but now it is "THE" host of "THE" Football World Cup. Qatar does not have the biggest military in the region; but it invested heavily in alliances, partnerships and institutions of all levels that comprised what is called soft power. The billions of dollars sent to the World Cup should be considered as an investment “to expand its influence and establish the legitimacy of its actions.”
Remember the little gang of the “Two Mohammeds” (Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and Muhammed bin Zayed of the UAE) who were making life miserable for Qatar only a few years ago. They had charged Qatar with “infringing on their sovereignty, adopting various terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilizing the region including the Muslim Brotherhood Group, Daesh and al-Qaida.” The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia had even announced that they were severing diplomatic relations. Only a fanatic could believe that Qatar was supporting a sectarian terrorist organization that was not only killing people but also giving Islam a bad reputation.
Türkiye had withstood with Qatar against not only their Arab brothers’ aggression but against the provocations of other countries as well. According to one of her leaked cables, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had tried to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Qatar as a strategic priority.
All these are because of Qatar sharing several natural gas fields with Iran and its insistence on not turning them off as the U.S. would like. If you do not heed to American Power, you are bad! But the World Cup seemingly chanced all those narratives.
Times have changed. The World Cup is something magical and spending your income on preparing your country to host the World Cup is magnificent. Qatar is now the most modern Muslim country in the world with state-of-the-art infrastructure, roads, transportation and technology.
Sheikh Tamim and his father Sheikh Hamad seem to be smart people to put this prestige and technology into use as “smart power” in Qatar’s diplomatic inventory. As Larbi Sadiki, professor of international relations at Qatar University says, the Al Thanis are shattering the post-colonial myths: a Muslim country can host a worldwide event as spectacular as the World Cup.
As part of the still-surviving post-colonialist narrative, I would like to refresh your memory. During the Bosnian War, in the mid-1990s, Douglas Hurd (aka Baron Hurd of Westwell) then British foreign minister, would shamelessly assure his peers at the House of Lords that the U.K. would never allow a Muslim country in the middle of Europe in the form of a Bosnian Republic. That is the reason for having such a convoluted administrative and political system in Bosnia-Herzegovina today! Also, you might like to think about the fact that Türkiye has applied for membership in the European Union for 64 years and is still not accepted! Alas, postcolonialism did all it could do to make humanity think that people living in the colonies (read: Africans, Asians and Muslims) are subordinate to the white imperialists.
Times have partially changed; not only the uniquely rich, but white countries, host the World Cup anymore. A Muslim country will host the FIFA tournament in its magnificent eight stadiums, and it will open the way for Muslim nations to be equal partners with imperialist nations. The traverses along the citadel have been pierced! Post-colonialism is not as strong as it was before yesterday.
Meanwhile, Budweiser’s parent company said they hope to make $850 million selling beers at the hotels, if not in stadiums.
