Qatar looks so disturbing as promises sink into the sand

AS the Qatar World Cup approaches, so the promises sink into sand. Asked very specifically this week about gay rights issues during the tournament, the Supreme Committee offered a reply as disturbing as it was faultlessly polite.

‘Everyone will be welcome to Qatar in 2022, regardless of race, background, religion, gender, sexual orientation or nationality,’ they said.

‘We are a relatively conservative society — for example, public displays of affection are not part of our culture. We believe in mutual respect, so whilst everyone is welcome, what we expect in return is for everyone to respect our culture and traditions.’

And it sounds so harmless. But it isn’t. Qatar’s culture and traditions are at a fork in the road from what is acceptable for most World Cup visitors.

And not just those in the West. Every qualifier from Europe and the Americas, plus Japan, Australia, South Korea and parts of Africa are more liberal than Qatar, at least 26 of 32 participating countries.

So that’s not only a problem for gay people. That is, potentially, an issue for the straightest, most middle of the road football supporter, who has followed his country around the world and thinks he has seen it all.

Fans will enter a world in which life can change overnight through circumstances and behaviour that would not raise an eyebrow anywhere else they have ever visited.

Drunkenness. Public displays of affection, such as kissing. A cheque that bounces. A V-sign or a swear word, particularly to an official.

A photograph taken in the wrong place. Shorts in a shopping mall. Striking up a conversation with a woman counts as harassment. These relative trifles can become serious offences.

Any dispute with a local, from a disputed taxi fare to an issue at a hotel, might escalate into several nights in jail.

And, under normal circumstances, those are the rules. If you choose to holiday or work in a place with draconian laws, that is your call. As the Supreme Committee state: respect the culture and traditions.

But this isn’t your choice. There is barely a football fan in the world who would have taken this tournament to Qatar.

FIFA have put it there, but will be assuming no responsibility beyond that. From their side, there will be private planes and security channels ready to whisk away any figure in a

blazer who transgresses when the games begin.

The banks used to have exactly those systems when they first opened up in dubai — a way of getting an individual the hell out before that row over the cocktail bill at Zero Gravity escalated.

THere will be no such protection for the ordinary fan and while, clearly, the gay community are most vulnerable — the supreme Committee would not even confirm whether a rainbow flag would be permissible — this is not about unfamiliar minorities, or extreme antics. Behaviour that wouldn’t merit a second look, drunkenness in a football crowd for instance, is incredibly foreign in Qatar.

There is film of fifA president Gianni infantino on a recent visit there trying to get a Qatari crowd to ‘make the place really vibrate’. On a count of three, he wants to hear ‘Qatar, Qatar, Qatar’.

The noise dwindles out after the first shambolic echo. He then repeats the instructions, but with ‘fifA, fifA, fifA’ to even less

enthusiasm. stoning remains legal in Qatar, but sadly underused.

still, it’s a miserable piece of footage because it shows the gulf in engagement between what football expects and what Qatar can deliver. except, this time, if football tries to be itself, what may be delivered could be unlike anything ever experienced.

NADINE DORRIES, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, rarely misses a chance to burnish her straight-talking northern credentials. Most recently the self-described ‘council estate Scouser’ was on LBC patronisingly stating how ‘the rest of the country’ — therefore not the Londoncentric, metropolitan, liberal elite — had never even heard of ethics chief Lord Geidt before his resignation. Probably too busy with their whippets. Strange, then, that the one time Dorries sought election in the north, she lost Hazel Grove to the Liberal Democrats by 8,435 votes, before being awarded the safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire. We digress. Yesterday, Dorries was at a press conference for the Rugby League World Cup, when she treated the room to her favourite moment from the sport’s rich history. ‘My long-standing memory is that 2003 drop goal,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you into a little secret: we were drinking Bloody Marys at the time. It was 11 o’clock in the morning but, wow, what a moment that was.’ Indeed. No doubt Dorries was also