Fast legs, nimble hands, beautiful bodies – and politics, lots of politics: for the emirate on the Persian Gulf, the World Cup in Qatar is much more than a sporting event. The mega event is part of a strategy to show: we are here, we are powerful, we defy our enemies, we have come to conquer the world market!
To save its prosperity in the post-fossil fuel era, the conservative World Cup nation is investing billions of its petrodollars around the world. Whether it’s hotels, football clubs, technology companies or car manufacturers, the Qataris are diversifying their portfolio at lightning speed – and enjoying their new role as indispensable partners.
Reminds me of the World Cup in Argentina
When the World Cup kicks off today at 5 p.m. with the Qatar-Ecuador match, the al-Thani monarch family has achieved the goal of their dreams: the whole world is watching Qatar. Football and its players, with millions of followers on Instagram and Tiktok, serve as a means for the emirate to demonstrate its power and growing influence.
For the historian Christian Koller (51), head of the social archive in Zurich, something is reminiscent of the World Cup in Argentina in 1978. While the home team raised the pot, according to the script of the fascist president general Jorge Rafael Videla , opposition members tortured to death. In total, 30,000 people fell victim to the military dictatorship – including during the World Cup football.
Qatar 2022 is not Argentina 1978. But: “Like the Qataris, the Argentine military junta also tried to win the favor of the international community with a large-scale PR offensive beforehand,” says Christian Koller. Friendly, young and handsome helpers should give the country a positive, open-minded image. The moustachioed generals spent more than $700 million nationwide on infrastructure modernization.
Fifa as an organization is a thing of the past
“Another targeted PR move by the regime was to keep the left-wing national coach César Luis Menotti on condition that he wins the world championship,” says Koller. Human rights violations, torture and intimidation of dissidents should have no place in the narrative of the military junta.
“The Qataris are doing the same thing,” says Koller. “Namely by trying to sweep the persecution of homosexuals, discrimination against women and support for Islamist terror under the rug.”
Koller sees the fact that the World Cup is now being held in authoritarian Qatar as a logical development in world football. Under Gianni Infantino (52), FIFA has evolved from an organization into a company whose sole purpose is to tap into new markets: more market, more power, more say. “The commercialization of football is becoming increasingly grotesque,” says Koller.
It’s not always about the ball: whether it’s the World Cup or the Olympic Games, whether it’s an authoritarian regime or a democracy, the political appeal of major events is unbroken. “Huge economic and political capital lies in the glamor of successful athletes,” says the historian. This will be cannibalized without exception.
Politics and sports are inextricably linked
Koller calls the attempt to separate sports and politics “probably the biggest lie in life”. From Adolf Hitler to Leonid Brezhnev to Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, they all used the Olympics to show the world the great deeds their countries are capable of. And what goes better with that than a beautiful, strong, athletic body that competes fairly.
However, it is not only politics that exploits sport. The actors in the stadium also make good use of the media audience for their concerns. It’s been more than half a century since two American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists to the sky in black gloves on the podium at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico to protest racial discrimination in their homeland.
It also remains memorable that during the national anthem in 1995, the Swiss national team unfurled a banner with the inscription “Stop it, Chirac”. The team led by Alain Sutter (54) used it to demonstrate against the nuclear bomb tests of then French President Jacques Chirac in the South Pacific. The message went around the world. Examples that show it: Sport and politics are inextricably linked.
Qatar has now raised the bar even higher with its image brush. But the first cracks are already visible: officials are publicly homophobic and journalists are prevented from doing their job.
In Qatar, the world is only the guest of an authoritarian regime – as so often.