When sports-washing goes wrong: The Qatar World Cup

This weekend a global festival of football kicks off, arguably the greatest spectacle in sport, perhaps only second to the Olympics. The men’s FIFA World Cup is an event which every four years captures the hearts, hopes and dreams of millions around the world.  A time of heroes and villains, of ecstasy, and ultimately agony for all but the luckiest few. And there will be heroes and villains in this World Cup. There will also be controversy, scandal, and protest.

Back in December 2010, the then all-powerful FIFA president Sepp Blatter surprised the world when he drew the name of Qatar from an envelope and announced them as hosts of the 2022 football World Cup. Qatar is a small country with no football heritage, insufficient infrastructure or football stadia, which basks in 50-degree heat in the summertime (when the games were to be played) and has a very questionable history on human rights and an open hostility towards homosexuality.

This precipitated years of bribery and corruption allegations, links with arms deals, FBI investigations, the criminal conviction, expulsion or banning of half the committee that awarded the competition to Qatar, and the fall from grace of one Sepp Blatter.2

But the fact that Qatar will host the World Cup remains. The oil-rich gulf state intended the tournament to shine a positive light onto the country, and its ability to host an event on the grandest of scales and stages. Like Russia four years before (yes, Russia), hosting the football World Cup is a prize, a badge of honour, worn by few countries that marks them out as special. As the UK and the London Olympics did in 2012, an opportunity to show off to the world.

Qatar has not held back. It’s estimated they’ve spent $250 billion on football-related development, 5 times the sum China spent on the 2008 Olympics. They’ve signed deals, endorsements and are paying fans and celebrities to come and tow the company line about how wonderful the country is. David Beckham is reported to have been paid £150 million to be the face of the World Cup, fan groups are being paid to speak & tweet positively about their experiences at the tournament.       

This gargantuan expense has so far backfired pretty spectacularly.

Most, if not all conversations, press articles and commentary seems to come with a massive caveat. The issues the absolute monarchy of Qatar wanted to airbrush are being highlighted, more so than had they kept their hands away from the deep pockets.  From politicians and pundits, to managers and players, questions abound. Some dodge, some defer, but there is a general disquiet from many, outrage from more than a few.

Column inches, documentaries, and from my own experience, even children’s playground conversations are focused on what is so wrong with Qatar hosting the tournament. Be that the scale of the corruption involved in winning the hosting vote, the complete exploitation of migrant workers and the number of their deaths (as many as 6,500 according to the Guardian) or the illegality of homosexuality (it’s “damage in the mind” according to a Qatar WC official just last week).

I suspect and hope that these conversations and the backlash against this sports-washing hasn’t reached a peak. A ball has not been kicked so the spotlights are not fully on yet. They will after this weekend, for four weeks.

As someone who has lived, loved, and agonised over every minute of England’s World Cup (mis)adventures since Mexico in 1986, I hope that as the whistle blows on Monday, our 3 lions take a knee with two armbands, one black and one rainbow, then walk off and onto the next plane home. They would be heroes in my eyes.