![]() ![]() But as global awareness of the economic, ecological, and human costs of the tournament continues to spread, FIFA and future host nations will have to answer difficult questions about the tournament’s merit. In Qatar’s case, said Reiche, the pros still appear to outweigh the cons. As Reiche and his co-author Paul Michael Brannagan argue in their new book on the tournament, “ Qatar intends to use the 2022 World Cup to promote a positive image of the country abroad, the tournament has, in contrast, come to introduce and educate many global audiences to the state in largely negative terms.” “Apart from visibility, it’s also about having some influence in international affairs and being able to punch above weight.”īut the increased international scrutiny that accompanies the tournament also creates significant political liabilities for hosts. “Qatar is a small state, and for small states, the main objective in international affairs is visibility,” said Danyel Reiche, a visiting associate professor at Georgetown University Qatar, where he leads a research initiative on the political and economic legacy of the World Cup. “I mean, I’m excited about the upcoming World Cup, even though I think it probably shouldn’t be in Qatar.”įor ascendant nations like Qatar, the benefits of hosting the World Cup are still very real. Blew the Whistle on the World’s Biggest Sports Scandal. “I know lots of people who say horrible things about FIFA who are still very excited about the coming World Cup,” said Ken Bensinger, an investigative reporter and the author of Red Card: How the U.S. The very sources of that appeal - the sweeping stakes that accompany 32 nations competing in a month-long tournament, the power of old rivalries, the possibility that a single goal could change a country’s fate - are the same things that make these controversies so intractable. Given that approximately 3.5 billion people tuned in to the World Cup in 2018, it’s impossible to deny the tournament’s continued global appeal. Since at least 1934 - when the second World Cup took place in Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italy - soccer fans have had to temper their enthusiasm for the game with an awareness of unsavory political compromises that inevitably accompany the multibillion-dollar spectacle. The 2018 tournament in Russia raised questions about FIFA’s cozy relationship with authoritarian leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the 2014 World Cup in Brazil sparked an international outcry over the forced removal of tens of thousands of poor and working-class Brazilians to make room for new tournament-related infrastructure. Global tensions around the competition have been further inflamed by FIFA’s controversial decision to move it to the northern hemisphere’s winter to avoid Qatar’s infernal summer heat, a move that critics have seized on as proof that FIFA is bending over backward to accommodate an already-troublesome host.Īnd this isn’t the first time a World Cup has been caught up in geopolitical controversies. According to an analysis by the Guardian, at least 6,500 migrant laborers have died in Qatar since the tournament was awarded to the country in 2010. That web includes everything from allegations of corruption and bribery during the bidding process to host the tournament, to accusations that Qatar is using the event to “sportswash” its record of human rights abuses. Since FIFA, the governing body for international soccer, awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar in 2010, the tournament has been ensnared in a tangled web of scandals. But even if you’re not a die-hard soccer fan, you’ve probably heard something about the many controversies swirling around this year’s edition of the most famous sporting event in the world. The 2022 FIFA World Cup is set to kick off in Qatar on November 20, stirring excitement and anticipation in soccer fans around the world.
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