Will Qatar Be Ready For Soccer Matches?
The sound of drilling echoes between skyscrapers downtown. At a desert encampment, loaders kick up dust between rows of tents. Newly planted palm trees line the coastal promenade. And at the water’s edge, the minutes tick away on a bright red, hourglass-shaped countdown clock.
With the first World Cup match starting November 20, Qatar is racing to be ready for the tournament, which will bring about 1.5 million fans to this desert peninsula in the Persian Gulf, with millions more watching the tournament at home worldwide.
Qatar, the smallest country to ever host the World Cup, has poured more than $220 billion into preparations for the event, building highways, a metro system, a new airport, stadiums and high-rises. For Qataris, the push into the sporting world is an effort to establish an image as a global player and fulfill the vision of the country’s leader, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, to develop the country.
That gamble has also brought controversy and criticism.
Dire working conditions for migrant laborers in Qatar came under fire after scores of them died at construction sites. The introduction of major labor reforms, welcomed by international monitors, was met with private grumblings among Qatari businessmen, and critics say the rules have been applied unevenly. Advocacy groups have criticized Qatar’s rights record, including laws criminalizing homosexuality and restricting free speech.
Qatari officials have grown increasingly defensive.
“Since we won the honor of hosting the World Cup, Qatar has faced an unprecedented campaign that no other host nation has received,” Sheikh Tamim said recently.
Qatari officials hope that the scrutiny will be overshadowed by a successful, spectacular tournament. They have tried to drive home the message that Qatar is more than ready.
When it comes to extravagance, in many ways Qatar has already delivered. The country has built eight
new stadiums with soccer pitches covered in grass flown in from the United States and outdoor air conditioning systems that can lower the temperature by more than 10 degrees Celsius. Last month, Qatari officials announced the addition of 30,000 rooms to meet the demand for accommodations, including on cruise ships and wooden boats known as dhows.
They have announced entertainment, including beach clubs, carnivals, futuristic light shows and two monthlong music festivals.
In the not-too-distant past, this extravagance would have been almost unimaginable in Qatar, a sunparched sliver of a country that for much of the 20th century was little more than a barren backwater for pearl divers and pirates. But as the country’s fortunes transformed with a natural gas boom in the 1990s, so, too, did Doha’s landscape, as it sprouted skyscrapers, sprawling malls and a pearl-shaped artificial island off its coast. Winning the World Cup bid accelerated that development at a dizzying pace.
“We’re using this tournament as a vehicle for change,” said Hassan Al Thawadi, the secretary general of Qatar’s World Cup organization.
But many fans, teams and spectators remain skeptical about how well the tournament will hold up. The estimated 1.5 million international visitors — around half of Qatar’s total population — will pour into the country over the monthlong event, which is typically hosted across multiple, major cities.
Some fans will be staying in basic accommodations, like refurbished shipping containers and glamping tents, built only weeks before they arrive. Motorcades for the teams and dignitaries, private cars and thousands of free buses to transport fans will flood the roads, bringing the specter of traffic jams.
The sheer size of the event means there will be unexpected logistical challenges. Some questioned Qatar’s preparedness for the inevitable after spectators at a match in a World Cup stadium in September complained of stands running out of water by halftime and huge lines outside the metro as people left the stadium.
Qatari officials and FIFA, soccer’s governing body, have framed those issues as growing pains and assured people that despite the cranes, scaffolding and drilling still scattered across the city, the major infrastructure needed for the tournament was complete.
Rights groups have raised concerns over how the Qatari police will handle violations by foreigners of local laws in a country that has criminalized homosexuality and sex outside of marriage, and where victims of sexual assault have been liable to face charges themselves if they report an incident.
Qatari authorities say police officers have been trained on how to respond to cases of sexual assault — the risk of which increases at any large sporting event — and that police will not interfere with L.G.B.T.Q. activists unless someone is at risk of physical harm.
Qatari officials are under pressure from within as well. Many Qataris lean more conservative than their country’s top leadership. Some worry that the Emir’s grand economic development plan risks erasing Qatar’s cultural heritage.
One recent evening in Souq Waqif, Doha’s celebrated traditional marketplace, Abdullah Abdulkadir, 38, sat with a few friends at a shop tucked into an alley, the smell of tobacco filling the room. A few of them had tickets to a game or two, and they grinned as they imagined seeing soccer stars like Lionel Messi and enjoying their city-turned-carnival.
But Mr. Abdulkadir refused to join in. He griped about the traffic and crowds inundating the city. For him, the event had come to embody his grievances around the rapid pace of change in Qatar. “Qatar is like another country now,” he said.
Nearby, a swarm of fans of the Tunisia men’s soccer team were screaming club chants. The watershed moment for Qatar had already begun.