Thoughts on the Qatar World Cup Decision

Thoughts on the Qatar World Cup Decision

From an English perspective, the failure of the bid to garner more than two votes, and the bid’s elimination in the first round was, in hindsight, a predictable humiliation. The whole of the FIFA power structure is threatened by accusations of corruption from two influential British media giants: the BBC and the Times.

In terms of the national morale, imagine the effect if we had won the bid. The quality of the national team is unlikely to improve any time soon. If we had won the tournament as hosts there would have been many who would have said that as in 1966, we only won it because of home advantage. If we had crashed out at an early stage, the same people would have said that we couldn’t even win the damned thing on home turf!




Restored Traditional Buildings of the Old Market, Souk Waqif, Doha, Qatar

Photographic Print

Buy at AllPosters.com



From a Bahrain perspective, Qatar’s 2022 win is fantastic news. The proposed causeway linking Bahrain and Qatar is likely to be open by then, and you can be sure that there will be thousands of fans who would prefer to stay in the relatively liberal environment of Bahrain and cross the causeway for matches. And that would also apply to many Saudis, for whom Bahrain has become a weekend playground. If the Qataris are smart, they will encourage the participation of Bahrain in soaking up some of the demand for hotel accommodation, thus avoiding the necessity of building many new hotels which after the World Cup end up as expensive white elephants.

More about thoughts on the Qatar World Cup Decision.