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The questions began
almost as soon as Qatar won the right to host football’s 2022 World Cup.
How will a tiny, gas-rich Gulf Arab state cope with an influx of
hundreds of thousands of football fans? How will the fans cope with the
searing summer heat? What about drinking in a conservative Muslim
society?

For most Qataris,
the world’s most watched sporting event represents a chance to offer a
new image of their homeland and the wider Middle East.

“This is not just
for Qatar, but for the whole region,” Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al
Missned, wife of the country’s ruler, told Reuters in an interview.

“This is an
opportunity to eradicate misconceptions, not just about Qatar, but about
the wider Islamic and Arab world. We are a very welcoming country, a
young nation. And we are not just dreamers, we are achievers.”

Alcohol no issue?

But the questions
are likely to continue right up to the World Cup itself. Take alcohol,
which many fans see as part of the football experience.

Although not “dry”
like neighbouring countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, alcohol is
served only at elite hotels in Qatar, and public drunkenness is
prohibited. Will the rules be relaxed in twelve years time?

Bid organisers have promised that some concessions will be made.

“The bid committee
has done its homework. We recognised that there would have to be some
allowances in (alcohol) availability. It’s not especially looking
forward to hordes of drunken football fans behaving in an antisocial
way, but no country welcomes that,” said Mike Lee, a consultant who
advised Qatar on the bid and helped London win the 2012 Olympics and Rio
those in 2016.

“Qatar is an
environment where Westerners are welcome, and already has a large expat
population. Not only is alcohol readily available at hotels, but for the
period of the World Cup it would be offered in other areas as well,”
Lee said.

Expats currently comprise about 80 percent of Qatar’s population of 1.7 million.

Consumption of
alcohol is likely to be largely ignored by the country’s predominantly
young population, as it is swept away with the euphoria of hosting the
competition, many believe.

“Around 50 to 60
percent of the population are aged in their 20s or below, so they are
more tolerant and I think they will embrace the event as a whole,” said
Sultan al-Qassemi, an Emirati social commentator based in the United
Arab Emirates.

The number of
outlets serving alcohol in Qatar is likely to increase over the next 12
years, Qassemi said, while a planned $3 billion 40-kilometre causeway to
Bahrain, where alcohol is more freely available, may also make it
easier to bring drink into the country.

Importing alcohol
into Qatar is currently illegal. Government and bid officials have not
said whether this will change prior to the tournament or for its
duration.

“I imagine that they
will set up areas for conspicuous alcohol consumption; a bit like how
they divide off restaurant areas in Dubai malls during Ramadan,” said
David B. Roberts, a researcher at Durham University in the UK.

“(Qatar’s Emir) came
to power largely, though not exclusively, by successfully courting
younger generations. Sport played a significant role in this. His
calculation is that Qataris will be proud enough of Qatar hosting the
World Cup to forgive him the liberalising of the laws,” Roberts said.

Ferocious summer

Then there’s the heat, which in summer can soar to above 50 degrees Celsius, making even crossing the street a challenge.

Although the
tournament will be played during the two hottest months of the year, bid
organisers say the heat inside the stadia will not be an issue, thanks
to climate-controlled, zero-carbon-emitting stadiums.

The country plans to
harness solar-powered technology to cool stadia to about 27 Celsius on
the pitch – a system that has worked on one small stadium in Qatar but
is yet to be proved on bigger buildings.

How fans will cope outside the stadia, however, is another matter.

“The bid committee
and government have been very astute about bringing in engineers,
architects, and designers. Given the technology they’ve already
developed, it could very well also be possible to air condition fan
zones, not just the stadia,” Lee said.

Though World Cups
are traditionally held during the northern hemisphere’s summer months
after the end of domestic league competitions, some have suggested that
the event take place in January, when temperatures are a comfortable 25
degrees.

“Plans for the
biggest leagues would have to change for 2022, but that would not be a
major undertaking,” FIFA executive committee member, Franz Beckenbauer,
said recently in comments to German newspaper, Bild.

Bid committee and government officials are yet to comment on such a move.

In its technical report, FIFA cited Qatar’s intense summer heat as a potential health risk for players and spectators.

“In my view, FIFA
has sold out the heritage of the World Cup – their coffers might be full
at the end of it, but morally they have bankrupted themselves by
totally ignoring what their own inspectors said about the unsuitability
of the place to host the tournament,” said one UK-based soccer analyst.

The decision to
award the event to Qatar, made amidst allegations of collusion, drew
much media criticism, particularly from the British press.

Two FIFA executive
committee members were banned and fined over allegations they had
offered to sell their votes in the vote to host the 2018 and 2022 World
Cups. But FIFA’s ethics committee, which investigated allegations of
collusion, found no evidence that Spain and Portugal’s joint bid, which
lost out on the right to host the 2018 Cup, had cut a deal with Qatar.

Ready to spend

Qatar says it will
prove it is a worthy host. Over the next five years, it plans to build a
$25 billion rail network, a $5.5 billion deep water seaport, and a new
airport for $11 billion which will be connected with big new residential
and commercial projects in the northern part of the capital, Doha, by a
$1 billion crossing. It will also spend an additional $20 billion on
new roads.

For the World Cup,
plans are in place to complete a metro system connecting each stadium by
2017 with venues no more than one hour apart from each other.

“The Qatar team made
a very conscious decision to bid for 2022 and not 2018, whereas several
bidders put themselves into both. They knew they were going to need a
decade to deliver everything,” Lee said.

Blessed with
abundant hydrocarbon resources – the country contains the world’s third
largest gas reserves and is the largest exporter of liquefied natural
gas (LNG) – it has poured much of the windfall from LNG exports into
education and cultural projects.

It hosts a cluster
of elite Western universities, a scientific research park filled with
blue-chip energy companies, and a much-lauded museum of Islamic art. It
plans a host of other museums, including one designed by famed French
architect, Jean Nouvel.

“What struck me
about Qatar was that they really do want to put these resources to very
good purposes. It’s not a question of just letting the oil and gas
flow,” Lee said.

“The international
and media interest in Qatar will now be tremendous. Rather than focusing
on the political troubles in the region, the win is an opportunity to
talk about what a country can achieve if it uses its resources in the
right way,” he further said.

Altering perceptions

“With the world
watching, Qatar will want to send a clear message: we deserved this,
we’re going to make the most out of it, and we’re going to show everyone
a different side of the Arab world,” said Shadi Hamid, director of
research at Brookings Doha Centre, the Qatar branch of the Washington
think tank.

To this end, Qatar’s
bid committee put a woman, Sheikha Mozah, at the heart of the final
presentation, a move which some analysts believe impressed the
committee. The only other bid to do that was Russia, winner of the 2018
tournament.

Bid CEO, Hassan
Al-Thawadi, also promised that Israel would be welcomed to compete. FIFA
would not have entertained a bid from Qatar if there was any suggestion
that Israel, shunned by most of the Arab world, would not be allowed to
compete if it qualified.

A shared cup?

FIFA president, Sepp
Blatter, recently suggested that Qatar could host the event with
neighbouring Gulf countries. But observers in the region say that it is
unlikely the Gulf state will share the glory.

“Obtaining the World
Cup is the apogee of Qatar’s policies in the past decade, where they
have shown a single-minded determination to publicise themselves as much
as possible, primarily to boost Qatar’s soft power,” Roberts said.

“The Gulf is a competitive place. Hosting the World Cup, the
publicity it will bring, the contacts that will be made, the money on
offer, the kudos and respect that hosting a successful event will bring,
may prove a massive competitive advantage,” he added.