Soccer fever: Will Qatar be ready for the World Cup?

NEW YORK: The sound of drilling echoes between skyscrapers downtown. At a desert encampment, loaders kick up dust between rows of hastily erected beige tents. Newly planted palm trees, their branches still wrapped in brown paper, line the coastal promenade. And at the water’s edge, the minutes tick away on a bright red, hourglass-shaped countdown clock. With just a few weeks to go until the World Cup kicks off, Qatar is racing to be ready to host the tournament, which will bring millions of eyes and hundreds of thousands of international spectators to this tiny desert peninsula in the Persian Gulf. Qatar, the smallest country to ever host the World Cup, has poured more than $220 billion into preparations for the event, erecting miles of highways, a metro system, a new airport, stadiums and high-rises.

For the Qataris, the all-out push into the sporting world is an effort to establish an image as a global player and fulfill the vision of the country’s leader, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, to economically develop the country. So far, though, that gamble has mostly brought controversy and criticism.

Dire working conditions for migrant labourers in Qatar came under fire after scores of them died on World Cup-related construction sites. The introduction of major labor reforms, welcomed by international monitors, was met with private grumblings among Qatari businessmen, and there have been criticisms that the rules have been applied unevenly. Advocacy groups have slammed Qatar’s human rights record, including laws criminalising homosexuality and restricting free speech.

And influence campaigns by Qatar’s rivals in the region have amplified a deluge of critical press — stoking regional tensions on the heels of a three-year blockade of Qatar led by its largest Arab neighbors, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

As the event draws near, Qatari officials have grown increasingly defensive about critical reports from rights advocacy groups and others. “Since we won the honor of hosting the World Cup, Qatar has faced an unprecedented campaign that no other host nation has received,” Sheikh Tamim said at a session of the country’s Shura Council earlier this week. That effort, he added, has “reached such a ferocity that many, unfortunately, wonder about the real reasons and motives behind it.”

Through it all, Qatari officials have privately hoped that the decade of scrutiny would be overshadowed by the spectacle of a successful, spectacular and even over-the-top tournament. They have even enlisted fans in that effort, offering them free trips to the World Cup with the understanding they will promote positive messages about Qatar while in the country.

And now, on the precipice of this long-awaited moment, they have tried to drive home the message that Qatar is more than ready to take its place on the world stage. When it comes to extravagance, in many ways Qatar has already delivered on its promise. The country has produced eight new stadiums with soccer pitches covered in grass flown in from the United States and outdoor air conditioning systems that can lower the temperature by more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celsius). Last month, Qatari officials announced the addition of 30,000 rooms to meet the surge in demand for accommodation, including some on cruise ships and traditional wooden boats known as dhows.

They have announced entertainment, including beach clubs, carnivals, futuristic light shows and two month-long music festivals. One involves D.J.s performing on a 50-foot-tall, flame-flowing mechanical spider borrowed from the Glastonbury Festival in England and reminiscent of a futuristic alien tank from the video game Halo.

In the not-too-distant past, this extravagance would have been almost unimaginable in Qatar, a sun-parched sliver of a country that for much of the 20th century was little more than a barren backwater for pearl divers and pirates. But as the country’s fortunes transformed with a natural gas boom in the 1990s, so, too, did Doha’s landscape, as it sprouted skyscrapers, sprawling malls and a pearl-shaped artificial island off its coast. Winning the World Cup bid accelerated that development at a dizzying pace.

“What is this tournament about for us? What does it help us achieve?” Hassan Al Thawadi, the secretary general of Qatar’s World Cup organisation, the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, said in an interview. “We’re using this tournament as a vehicle for change.” But many international fans, teams and spectators remain skeptical about how well that newly minted infrastructure will hold up during the tournament. An estimated 1.5 million international visitors — around half of Qatar’s total population — will pour into the country over the month-long event, which is typically hosted across multiple, major cities. Qatar is about the size of Connecticut.

Some fans will be staying in basic accommodation, like refurbished shipping containers and glamping tents, constructed only weeks before they arrive. Motorcades for the teams and V.I.P.s, private cars and thousands of free buses to transport fans will flood the roads — bringing the specter of bumper-to-bumper traffic. The city’s new international airport will not be able to handle the crowds on its own, so its predecessor has been put back into service. Housekeepers in one ritzy hotel in West Bay, one of Doha’s upscale neighbourhoods, will be tasked with cleaning 80 rooms a day — up from the usual 20, they say. When asked if he thought the newly minted metro could handle thousands of drunk fans, the station agent at a stop in the neighborhood smiled, shook his head and muttered “no way” between exaggerated coughs. “It was just a cough! Nothing else!” the agent said, laughing. He said he was not authorised to talk to the press.

Qatari officials and FIFA, soccer’s governing body, have framed those issues as growing pains and assured people that despite the cranes, scaffolding and drilling still scattered across the city, the major infrastructure needed for the tournament was complete. But even they admit that with setbacks and delays from the Covid-19 pandemic, the country has not been able to fully test its readiness.

The New York Times