Empty Doha a massive setback for world’s best

Olympic hockey THE last two weeks have seen the World Athletics Championships in Qatar and the pool stages of the Rugby World Cup Japan.

Both events have featured circumstances which have drawn widespread debate and criticism about where worldclass events should be held.

It was heart-breaking to see a virtually empty stadium in Doha (below) as the best athletes in the world were competing, although the numbers did improve as the championships wore on.

Away from the Olympic Games, athletics desperately needs spectators in order for it to survive. The staging in Doha did the sport absolutely no favours.

And a week later, the three matches at the Rugby World Cup were cancelled due to a typhoon hitting the country.

Again, some have argued this has reflected badly on the sport, although I cannot agree with this sentiment.

All of this has made me reflect on how sports are spread as far across the globe as possible, and the huge responsibility world governing bodies have in this process.

Despite a big cheque, we have to admit that staging the 2019 World Athletics Championships in

Doha was an enormous mistake by the IAAF.

They can blame regionalised issues, TV hero... sports fanatic scheduling etc. But it is their job to protect and grow athletics across the world and this was an abject failure.

What happened in Doha has harmed athletics and it desperately needs the Tokyo Olympics to come to its rescue.

But the events in Japan with the typhoon shouldn’t be compared to this.

The Japanese have been incredible hosts and the energy around the whole tournament has been wonderful to see, with Japan’s own brilliant performances adding to this, (above, Kotaro Matsushima).

The World Cup in Japan has been a brilliant move by IRFB.

It has shown the game is striving and thriving outside of the traditional rugby nations and will give hope to other nations that they can develop the game as fast as the Japanese.

The typhoon is unfortunate but was a risk worth taking for the long-term benefit of rugby.

There were two very different decisions in choosing Doha and Tokyo and the responsibility behind making both decisions was massive. All sports are competing harder than ever for global viewers and so, it is time that governing bodies used a long-term viewpoint on every major decision they make.

Anything short of that is doing their sport a grand disservice.

„ Sam Quek is an ambassador for footie5, a weekly free-to-play football game where you can win £25,000 by predicting the scores of five matches from across the English and Scottish leagues. Download the app or play at www.footie5.com