How the World Cup put Qatar on the global stage

The 2022 FIFA World Cup will kick off in Qatar in five days. It has been a long road since December 2010, when Qatar beat the competition from Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the US to win the bid to host this global event.

When FIFA president Sepp Blatter announced that the bid went to Qatar, the mood across Doha that day almost 12 years ago was celebratory, with widespread jubilation and traffic jams all over the capital. In late 2010, however, there was still little global awareness about Qatar as a country.

The Qataris have used this global event and the preparations for it to put their nation on the map. Hosting the World Cup has been, and will be, an opportunity to present a narrative of Qatar to the world as a forward-thinking, liberal, and outwardly oriented Gulf state.

In late 2010, Khalifa Khalaf, an employee in the Qatari energy sector, said that winning the bid was “like a dream” that “means everything to us” and he vowed that the World Cup being held in his country “will prove to the world that good things come from small places”.

"The Qataris have used this global event and the preparations for it to put their nation on the map"

Dr Diana Galeeva, a Visiting Scholar at Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and Non-Resident Fellow at the Gulf International Forum, told The New Arab that this global sports event is a “great soft power and state-branding opportunity for Qatar” as well as a “fantastic opportunity to familiarise the world with the region, the Gulf, and Qatar, even if it is not an uncontroversial event.” As she explained, this “soft empowerment” can further elevate the status of Qatar, a “micro-state”, on the international stage.

When the Qataris first applied to host the World Cup, the leadership in Doha was heavily focused on the country’s overall security strategy. “As a small wealthy country in a difficult neighbourhood with predatory neighbours, Qatar needed to maintain a worldwide image that would enhance its security,” said Patrick Theros, a career diplomat who served as the US ambassador to Qatar from 1995 to 1998, in an interview with TNA.

“It would appear that becoming a sports-oriented country will continue to serve its security interests primarily.”

Dr Gerd Nonneman, a Professor of International Relations and Gulf Studies at Georgetown University Qatar, agrees that a successful World Cup in Qatar this year will advance the Gulf country’s security aims.

“That strategy is one of ensuring security through visibility and a global network of diplomatic relations. While the core security relationship is with the US, this has been and will continue to be complemented with as diverse as possible relationships elsewhere – something that is also served by its global network of energy relationships: the aim is to be appreciated by as diverse a set of states and players as possible, whether as a welcome investor and reliable supplier of LNG, or a useful facilitator of, or channel of communication for, contacts and mediation or negotiations between actors that cannot easily talk directly,” he said.

“The visibility and prestige that comes with a well-executed World Cup are helpful in this regard,” continued Dr Nonneman.

A grander vision for Qatar's future

No other World Cup host has spent as much money on preparing for the games as Qatar, with this massive investment integrated into Doha’s grander vision and plans for national development. This includes establishing a new airport, an efficient road network, entertainment spaces, stadiums, roughly 100 hotels, and a metro system.

Had the Qataris not won this bid back in 2010, such development would have moved anyway in similar ways albeit at a slower tempo and on a smaller scale.

“Basically, 20 years' worth of development has been squeezed into ten,” Dr Nonneman told TNA. “As it is, the [World] Cup was (and is) seen as one particularly high-profile means to help achieve their future ambitions: bringing better global awareness of what is possible in Qatar, drawing larger number of visitors, developing a major events industry, and drawing investors - all part of the wider aim of building a more diverse, sustainable economy in the medium-term.”

Tourism is one pillar of Qatar’s economic diversification strategy. The development of Qatar’s sports sector will likely contribute to the success of tourism in Doha and the overall brand of Qatar.

“As a small state, some time ago Qatar highlighted a number of areas in which it wanted to make a name for itself internationally, and sports was one of them,” said Dr Mehran Kamrava, a Professor of Government at Georgetown University Qatar, in a TNA interview. “My sense is that this emphasis in sports, and investments in sports and sporting events, will continue for the foreseeable future.”

Labour rights

Qatar hosting this year’s World Cup has not been without controversy. Allegations of the Gulf state winning the bid in 2010 through bribery, Qatar’s anti-LGBT laws, and exploitation of foreign labourers in the country have led to much criticism, mostly from the West.

On the issue of labour rights, further reforms are necessary. However, the Qataris have made significant progress as documented by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Qatar implemented a labour reform law in 2016 that provided for changes to the country’s Kafala system. By late 2019, the law formally abolished that system. The reform agenda continued advancing the following year with a monthly minimum wage being established and authorities in Doha enhancing cooperation with the ILO.

"If previous experience is any indication, Qatar is likely to continue its labour reforms as it wants to play a leading role in this area in the region"

There was also an important regional context. Notably, the reform process accelerated after the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) crisis broke out in mid-2017. Pressure came down on Doha to distinguish itself from the blockading states in ways that would make the West see it as something besides a ‘typical’ Gulf state with an economic model reliant on foreign labourers.

“A key accelerator was the three-and-a-half-year boycott that was imposed on Qatar in June 2017,” said Dr Nonneman. “That brought everyone in the ruling family, wider Qatari society and even the expatriate society rallying round the system, and, hence that seems clearly to have given that leadership the confidence to push ahead harder and faster with the reforms, while they had earlier been proceeding more gingerly in order to keep various local constituencies on board.”

An important question is, what will happen to this reform process after this year’s World Cup is over? With an international spotlight taken off Qatar, some experts think that the reform agenda might slightly slow down but not come to a halt.

“The Qataris have already achieved far more in labour reforms than I ever thought possible and have outstripped their neighbours in this regard. I have no reason to believe that any of these reforms will be reversed,” said Theros.

For their part, Qatari officials have said that the structural labour reforms are permanent and will continue long after the tournament.

“If previous experience is any indication, Qatar is likely to continue its labour reforms as it wants to play a leading role in this area in the region,” pointed out Dr Kamrava.

“Already, Qatar’s commitments with, and its collaborations with, the International Labor Organization [(ILO)], has yielded considerable positive reforms, despite the blind eye that most of Europe casts toward the issue, and, given the way the state here operates, I would be surprised if Qatar did not continue with its role as a regional leader in labour reforms. There is, after all, far more for Qatar to be gained in terms of international prestige and regional leadership if it continues with its reforms as compared to the other way around,” he added.

Dr Nonneman agrees. “After the World Cup, the unprecedented speed of the reforms will doubtless come down, but they will not be reversed, both because the aim of visibility and attracting foreign visitors and investors means the global spotlight will not disappear, and because the top leadership has long been aware that the reforms are required to create the sort of efficient labour market that is a necessity for the more diverse, sustainable, competitive economy they want to build for the future. It is also for that reason that the ILO office in Qatar is likely to become a permanent presence.”

Qatar's foreign policy and the management of optics

The World Cup has subjected Qatar to high levels of criticism - some of which is fact-based and fair while other denunciations border on baseless smears rooted in orientalism which depict Arabs and Muslims as caricatures.

“Currently, the level of anger and resentment against Qatar in Europe is hard to ignore,” Kamrava told TNA. “Seemingly stung by the fact that the game it considers as exclusively its own is now being hosted by an Arab and Muslim country, the level of vitriol against Qatar in various parts of Europe - from England to Germany and the rest of the continent - is astounding.”

There has been no shortage of misinformation attempting to inaccurately portray Qatar as an intolerant, medieval, and backwards country. Voices in certain Western countries which are determined to represent Qatar as negatively as possible will continue pushing their narratives regardless of how the World Cup plays out this year.

"After the World Cup, we are likely to see continued hyper-diplomacy and presence on the international stage by Qatar"

“Image is a tricky thing. We already are seeing various organisations attacking Qatar for past sins or demanding Qatar do things that are simply not possible, such as allowing expatriate non-citizen workers to participate in politics. These are unreasonable demands, but many NGOs support their funding by beating the drums. Rival countries may also contribute to these efforts. Successful conduct of the World Cup will negate much but not all the outside noise,” explained Theros.

As Kamrava sees it, “if the tournament is successful and doesn’t feature some crisis of some kind,” the Qataris will probably have their confidence boosted as was the case after Doha came on top when the second GCC crisis was resolved at the historic al-Ula summit in early 2021.

“After the World Cup, we are likely to see continued hyper-diplomacy and presence on the international stage by Qatar.”

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics. 

Follow him on Twitter: @GiorgioCafiero