Qatar’s giant leap in sport — it is all about the vision

MOMENT OF PRIDE: HH the Father Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani with FIFA President Sepp Blatter and FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke after Qatar had won the hosting rights of the 2022 Football World Cup.

By Anil John

 Sports Editor

It was with great trepidation that I walked into the hall where the Qatar Olympic Committee had called a press conference a few days after Doha had won the bid to host the 2006 Asian Games.

It was late 2000, and all of a sudden Qatar was bristling with the kind of energy and anticipation the 800,000 people living in the country had never experienced before. The mood was celebratory, even strangers smiled at you, and it was obvious that great changes were about to take place.

However, I was nervous, even scared. Barely had Qatar announced its intention to bid for the Games in 1998, I had written an exhaustive piece in the Gulf Times about the lack of sporting facilities in Doha and the absence of a popular sports culture that would justify the hosting of Asia’s premier event in the country. To make matters worse, the article was published under the rather provocative headline: “Is Qatar’s Asian Games bid only a pipe dream?”

I was in a new environment and like many, who were not born or brought up in the region, I had my misgivings about the Gulf. It’s all about money, I was told, as well-wishers advised me what to expect, what to do and what not to do. Keep your eyes and ears open but your mouth shut — that seemed the mantra for survival.

However, I was a young journalist hoping to make a splash, as it were. Working with the Indian Express for several years had infused me with a strong sense of confidence and fearlessness. In my scheme of things then, established norms and practices were of no value. I had little or no regard for officialdom, especially the pushy kind, and I was always ready to pack my bags and take the first flight out if I was fired. I believed every journalist worth his salt should have a bit of death-wish about him.

But on the day of the press conference, I hoped nobody remembered the piece I had written two years earlier. I knew my enthusiasm had gotten the better of me then, and had realised in the two intervening years after that, I was a bit unfair on Qatar. But I also strongly believed that journalists often benefit from the short memory of their audience and that my indiscretion was long forgotten.

I was wrong, again. As journalists and officials chatted before the press conference formally got underway, Sheikh Khalid bin Ali al-Thani, one of the prominent members of the bid team, asked me from which newspaper I was. “The Gulf Times,” I said. His eyes lit up suddenly and his face had this expression that said “gotcha.”

“So you are the one who wrote Qatar was only dreaming about the Asian Games,” he said. I thought I had had it and was about to get a barracking in front of everybody. But to my surprise, he smiled benignly. “See, we proved you wrong,” he said in a manner that hardly seemed admonishing. Yet, it was. I was sufficiently chastised.

The fact that Qatar is naturally blessed with great wealth is common knowledge but the country also has a great vision to go with it. That is what makes a difference. Skeptics who are of the opinion that sport’s capacity to be a catalyst for change is overrated should only look at the way Qatar has gone about it. It would turn them into instant converts.

Doha 2006 was Qatar’s coming of age party in many ways. In an instant, it was on the global sporting map, the fact that the Asian Games were widely acknowledged as the best in history raising the country’s profile several notches. From a backwater in a troubled region where sporting greats occasionally gathered, it had turned into a throbbing hub of activity and would continue to remain so well into the future.

Then arose the question what now? A FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games were the next logical steps to attain the sporting goals of Qatar’s National Vision 2030. Qatar lost out on the 2016 and 2020 Olympics bids, but netted the biggest sporting event on the planet when it won the right to host the 2022 World Cup amid tough competition from the US, Japan and Australia.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup will see the planet’s entire focus on Qatar. After becoming the first Arab nation to host the Asian Games, Qatar will be the first Arab or Muslim country to host the tournament which is at the centre of all development taking place currently.

Upwards of a whopping $250bn will be pumped into infrastructure projects ahead of the tournament. Work on the multibillion dollar rail and metro is already progressing apace and several hotels, stadiums, housing projects, healthcare and entertainment venues are in the pipeline. Qatar was recently declared the World’s Leading Sports Tourism Destination at the World Travel Awards, a fine endorsement of the progress the country had made in a short span.

So is it all about money? As they say, money makes the world go round. But if you want the world to come to you, vision wins the battle hands down.