One year later: Qatar, 2022 World Cup

It’s easier said than done: Being magnanimous in defeat. After Doha lost out to London last month in the race to host the 2017 World Athletics Championships, Qatar newspaper The Gulf Times said in a November 12 editorial, “There’s no reason to brood over the decision or get worked up over it,” but soon the paper couldn’t help itself. “Strangely, despite its pitch as a strong athletics-loving city, London had never hosted the biennial event, mainly due to a lack of proper backing from the government and uncertainty and controversy over its stadium plans.”

Qatar has been on the receiving end of much worse barbs for a year now. The track and field meet pales into comparison to the World Cup. FIFA’s decision on December 2, 2010 to give the tournament to the tiny Gulf State is still being debated to this day. Just last week, Frank Lowy, chairman of a Football Federation Australia humiliated by its single vote in Zurich, more than hinted that the matter was not yet set in stone.

“I am under no illusions the skepticism will continue up to 2022,” bid CEO Hassan Al-Thawadi, now heading the grandly titled Supreme Committee that will organize the whole affair, said in November. “Look at Danny Jordaan,” referring to the man who had a similar role for the 2010 finals. “He continued up to the last minute selling South Africa. Skepticism with major events is always going to be there. We have gone a long way toward addressing it. As more progress is made, I hope that [the skepticism] gradually goes away.”

It is more hope than expectation. Even in the Qatari capital of Doha - in front of an audience of journalists, businessmen, agents and the occasional football player and manager - a Reuters reporter raises a hand and asks what contingency plans the country has in regard to the instability of the region in the wake of the Arab Spring and all the unrest in countries like Libya and Syria and a potential nuclear Iran.

Al-Thawadi, just 32, sighed but hit back quickly listing problems in the west - Eurozone meltdown; changes or, at the time, potential changes, of leadership in Greece, Italy and Spain to the financial crisis; riots in London and political gridlock in the United States - before throwing in references to earthquakes and tsunamis. He got a round of applause for his answer from those present, but much of the international media is going to remain harder to win over. And that is assuming that all goes smoothly over the next few years.

The hard work is still to come. On the face of it not much has changed in the past year in Doha, though that is not quite true. The city is in a constant state of flux, and long before it partied into the night after seeing the contents of Sepp Blatter’s envelope a year ago, new buildings were springing up all the time. It is perhaps more true to say that nothing specifically related to the World Cup seems to have been built.

“We’ve been laying foundations and putting organizing structures in place,” Nasser Al Khater, 2022 communications director replied when I asked him what had been done in the last 365 days. “We have been busy behind the scenes to ensure that there is a system in place, such as appointing a supreme organizing committee. We have been focusing on human resources and procurement, and in December we will appoint a project management company.”

It all sounds a little dull, but organizers are at pains to point out that the World Cup is just one component of a general drive to improve the infrastructure of the nation with the highest GDP in the world. “It is not all about 2022,” said Al-Thawadi. “We have gone to great lengths to emphasize that the World Cup is set against the background of our 2030 vision with economic development and human, social and environmental development – the World Cup complements all of them.”

A new airport is nearing completion with new hotels springing up all over the place. The city’s tallest building - the Aspire Tower, the location of the 2006 Asian Games flame - is now known as the Torch Hotel: a cylindrical structure reaching 47 floors up into the Middle-eastern sky that overlooks the Al Khalifa Stadium. This is the national stadium, currently the largest in the country: 50,000 seats. It will be expanded, temporarily, to 68,000 for the competition and is one of three arenas already in place, along with Al Gharafa and Al Rayyan. Those two will see their present 21,000 capacities doubled.

Work has yet to start on the eight stadia to be built from scratch, but what Qatar has in addition to its well-reported funds is time. Ground will be broken on the first of the outstanding octet in 2012 and the first will be ready in 2015. The last is scheduled to be completed in 2020.

As is also well-reported, these are set to be air-conditioned facilities due to the brutal summer temperatures. There are misgivings. Just last month John Barrow, of UK architects Populous, who worked on the 2022 bid, told a Zurich conference that it was not necessary, declaring that traditional ventilation methods are the way forward economically, environmentally and practically.."It's very important to get the shading, entrancing and departure right in terms of comfort. That's a pre-requisite, otherwise it's hopeless," Barrow said. "The organizers want to have the big showcase stadium with air conditioning but we are fighting hard to persuade them that you don't need to have it." In public at least, organizers have signaled that such a fight is a waste of time.

One solution is, of course, to move the tournament to January when it is pleasantly warm during the day and cool in the evening (even then nobody walks, and expats talk of picking up the ‘Doha Stone’ a few weeks after arrival, due to local habit of driving everywhere). FIFA president Sepp Blatter talked of the possibility in January but told FOXSoccer.com last week that it was not on the cards. “According to the list of requirements, the World Cup has to be played in June-July,” Blatter said. “It’s also according to the international calendar.” The Swiss Supremo also declared that FIFA has received no request from Qatar to change the dates.

The Qataris are adamant that it will never come and have been at pains to state that they will only change the dates if the whole of football requests it. "Right now, the plans are on to host the World Cup in summer itself," Al-Thawadi said."However, if FIFA asks us to postpone the championship to winter, we will not oppose the proposal."

The major European leagues probably would. They may come round as could the rest of the world when it comes to the host of the 2022 World Cup. Either way, there is probably not much that Qatar can do about international skepticism, but after one year, perhaps the greatest development is that the country is, at least, getting used to it.