Hosting the "most expensive" World Cup in history, Qatar has a big bill

Qatar spent 229 billion US dollars to host the World Cup. The calculation was not an economic account, but a geopolitical account.

Countdown clock to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Photo/Xinhua News Agency

Text | Xu Lifan

There are still three days until the Qatar World Cup kicks off on November 20.

This World Cup is the first time to be held in the Gulf region of the Middle East and the first time to be held in the northern hemisphere winter. It is the World Cup’s return to Asia after 20 years. It is also the most expensive World Cup in history. In order to successfully host this World Cup Qatar has spent US$229 billion on the World Cup.

From the 1994 World Cup in the United States to the 2018 World Cup in Russia, a total of US$55.9 billion was spent, and the cost of the Qatar World Cup was equivalent to four times that of the previous seven World Cups.

Many fans are waiting for the opening moment of the World Cup in Qatar. The "reprise of yesterday" of grand sporting events is undoubtedly a necessary comfort for many people. However, because of Qatar's certain "heterogeneity", the shadow of political games hangs over this World Cup.

On November 11, 2022 local time, people took photos in front of the World Cup landscape set up on the Doha Promenade. Photo/Xinhua News Agency

Western media continue to question Qatar

On November 6, British media reported that the Qatari government had planted spies at FIFA. In addition to monitoring FIFA information for Qatar and ensuring Qatar's right to host the World Cup, the spy "also tried to influence the foreign policy of the United States." According to the report, people familiar with the matter revealed that the FBI has been opening the case for several months. Qatar dismissed the report as a "despicable action that damages Qatar's reputation."

Recently, the data protection regulatory authorities of Germany, Norway, and France have successively warned that Qatar’s two World Cup apps pose huge privacy risks and advised fans rushing to Qatar to “not download them.” Norwegian agencies even said that tourists traveling to Qatar may be monitored by the Qatari government. The two named apps, Ehteraz and Hayya, are used to follow up on event information and inquire about Qatar’s free public transportation system.

Earlier, Western media extensively reported on the death of migrant workers during the preparations for the World Cup in Qatar. Western media put the death toll at between 6,500 and 15,000. Qatar has condemned these reports, saying the statistics lack accuracy, credibility and completeness.

Whenever a non-Western country hosts a major event, it is customary for the Western media to find all kinds of dark sides and scandals. But there are other deeper reasons for sparing no effort in attacking a small country like Qatar.

On April 1, 2022 local time, the official ball was displayed on the big screen at the Qatar World Cup draw ceremony. Photo/Xinhua News Agency

Qatar’s “balanced diplomacy” makes the West uncomfortable

Although Qatar is a Middle Eastern country, it has historically been one of the most pro-British and American Middle Eastern countries. The reason is that Qatar has long pursued a diplomatic policy of "reliance on major powers". Before Qatar formally became independent from British protection in 1971, it relied on Britain for its security and development. After independence, especially after the 1990s, it switched to completely relying on the United States.

In addition, Qatar is also the center for the deployment of US military forces in the Middle East. The largest U.S. military base in the Middle East is Al Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. This is the location of the regional headquarters of the U.S. Central Command. It has bunkers that can accommodate nearly a hundred aircraft. At its peak, as many as 12,000 U.S. troops were stationed here, accounting for about one-fifth of the total number of U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East.

In recent years, as the United States has canceled the priority status of the Middle East in its grand strategy, Qatar has begun to emphasize "balanced diplomacy"-China, Russia, Iran and other countries are Qatar's diplomatic priorities.

In the past two years, as Saudi Arabia has tried to improve relations with Iran and Turkey, Qatar has also repaired the once tense diplomatic relations with other Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia due to its support for the Muslim Brotherhood.

After the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out, Qatar did not easily take sides. Instead, it accused the West of only seeing the humanitarian disaster in Ukraine and turning a blind eye to the suffering that many countries in the Middle East have suffered for many years.

After Europe imposed sanctions on Russia, European leaders visited Qatar one after another to seek new sources of natural gas. However, Qatar has repeatedly stated that it is unable to meet all European needs and requires European countries to sign 20-year long-term contracts. However, in European countries, most deals have not been negotiated due to restrictions on green policies.

The above-mentioned actions of Qatar have made countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, which once regarded Qatar as their own oil and gas fields, very uncomfortable. This incompatibility was transmitted to the media and became a public opinion offensive questioning the World Cup in Qatar.

Qatar is calculating geopolitical accounts

From the above geopolitical perspective, we can know that the reason why Qatar spent 229 billion US dollars to host the World Cup is not to calculate economic accounts, but to calculate geopolitical accounts. .

On the one hand, although Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates restored diplomatic relations in 2020, the degree of improvement is still limited. Qatar had a border conflict with Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. Since then, Qatar has been seeking possible ways to escape being controlled by others.

This is the reason why Qatar supports the Muslim Brotherhood, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Lai Xie, the project leader of Georgetown University’s research on the Qatar World Cup, believes that if the World Cup had not been held and there was a US military base, Saudi Arabia might have occupied Qatar in 2017. Such news did come out in 2020, which was allegedly leaked from a US government report.

On the other hand, during the World Cup, 1.2 million to 1.5 million fans will rush to Qatar, a large number of them European fans and Middle Eastern fans. Coupled with media coverage, this is an opportunity to enhance Qatar's international image and improve relations with other GCC countries.

In fact, Qatar is very good at creating cultural narratives and brand images. Al Jazeera, Qatar Airways, Doha Forum, etc., all already have quite a reputation. The same goes for hosting the World Cup.

I hope that during the World Cup in Qatar, there will be less haze of geopolitical games and more memorable classic games for fans.

Writing/Xu Lifan

Editor/He Rui

Proofreading/Zhao Lin