Six years and counting to Qatar World Cup

It may may go unnoticed as a footballing landmark, but this week marks the halfway point between the controversial awarding of the World Cup to Qatar in December 2010, and the tournament kicking off in the tiny but wealthy Arab state in November 2022.

On this day in six years’ time many of us will be looking back on the opening matches from the 2022 World Cup finals and, if the organising committee are to be believed, most of us will be wondering what all the fuss was about. Certainly Hassan al Thawadi, General Secretary of the Supreme Committee responsible for winning the bid and delivering the greatest sporting event on Earth, has no doubts it will be a ‘fantastic World Cup”.

Al Thawadi is not only the brains behind Qatar’s World Cup vision, he is the face of it, addressing the multiple concerns and allegations that have dogged the gas-rich emirate since that shocking day in Zurich six years ago when the likes of England, Australia, and the US lost out to Russia and Qatar for the right to host the next two World Cups. Fifa’s decision was portrayed widely as a victory for money and corruption over traditional football values, and subsequent events have reinforced the notion that the whole bidding process is flawed, going back to the awarding of World Cups to Germany and South Africa.