Today, Explained - World Cup: Welcome to Qatar!

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

Soccer is sometimes called “the second religion of the Arab World,” and Qatar is the region’s first country to host the World Cup. But FIFA’s pick of the desert nation comes with boundless controversy. This episode was produced by Haleema Shah, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Efim Shapiro, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Five billion-ish people will watch the FIFA World Cup later this month. More than half of population earth. Oh, what a go! What a strike! The pocket-sized Gulf nation of Qatar will host. Countries compete fiercely for the right to host the World Cup. And when Qatar won, it was a win for the soccer-obsessed Arab world. But then came the allegations. Had Qatar cheated? If you sort me out, hook me up for 2018, we will work behind the scenes to help you in 2022.

Scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, and let's come up with a deal. Or is this a case of a country unfairly accused of corruption when everyone involved is on some level pretty corrupt? Coming up on Today Explained. Pop, go baby, eat up. Pop, go baby, eat up. Pop, go baby, eat up. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long.

From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with Bet MGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about Bet MGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM. A sportsbook worth a slam

dunk. An authorized gaming partner of the NBA. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. This is the first time ever that the World Cup is being held in an Arab country. And that is exciting full stop. Because as we're going to hear, the evolution of soccer in the Arab world in some ways is the evolution of the Arab world from colonialism to revolution. Abdullah El-Erian is a professor of Middle East history at Georgetown University in Qatar. It's like a franchise situation. He edited a book called Football in the Middle East, State, Society, and the Beautiful Game. Abdullah,

let's start with the good stuff. What's it like in Doha now? What has the city gotten? A lot of new buildings, new roads, a metro system that wasn't here just a few years ago. It debuted in 2019. 110 cars will make up to 700,000 trips each day. A new airport, so there's the physical transformation of the city. The primary artery for cars will be transformed into a pedestrian-only entertainment district for an estimated 1.2 million fans. There's new parts of the city, entire neighborhood sections that have just sort of come up out of nowhere just in the last kind of five or six years or so. You know, a lot of the massive billboards and the faces of all of the like world football's biggest stars sprawling all over,

skyscrapers and things like that. And of course, everywhere you look, there's a new stadium that has popped up. A stadium designed to reflect the nomadic culture of the region. The design of the stadium resembled the Bedwinton Betisara, which is the welcome sign back in the days. They built seven stadiums. an eighth was refurbished, but all of the games, the 64 matches, will be held within these eight stadiums. Give me a sense of how important soccer is to the Middle East.

You know, the game is definitely the most popular sport anywhere in this region. You see entire cities kind of turn out for their major club matches. You can hear a pin drop whenever the national teams are playing, whether it's in Egypt or Algeria or Morocco, because everyone is sort of tuned in, whether in their radios, in the cafes, or even those who are attending the matches in stadiums.

So there's a real passion in a sense that, you know, the national teams tend to be kind of really representative of the entire country in a way that you could even argue is more representative of the population and of the society than sometimes their own political leaders are. The game was introduced really through the colonial experience. Most of the countries in the Middle East were at one point or another colonized by either Britain or France. And so it was during the course of that colonial experience that you see colonial officials introducing new educational curriculums, trying to modernize the population. Part of that included things like physical education that they believed was important to develop what they called properly obedient individuals. And so this meant kind of introducing the game as kind of, you know, a very structured game with a set of rules.

For ball control is essential to skillful play. That required a certain kind of discipline and that this was ultimately going to kind of educate them into a sort of Western way of thinking and acting. And so this was the way that they tried to kind of groom and cultivate the elites within the societies that they conquered. And through games like heading tennis, keeping the boys interested in learning the right way of bringing the head into contact with the ball. But of course, the game, like most things,

when it comes to popular culture, has the tendency to take on a life of its own. And all of a sudden, it becomes a source of empowerment for populations against colonial rule. Against colonial rule, and then later against authoritarian rule, right? So, Abdullah, I lived in Cairo during the Arab Spring, and I'd cover these massive protests, and I knew to look out for the ultras, the super fans of these big teams like Ahli and Zamalek, because they were an organized contingent. They seemed to be leading things. And for an American journalist, it was like, I cannot imagine Jets fans doing this.

We're talking about authoritarian contexts, especially in places like Egypt and Algeria and Syria and elsewhere, where you don't see the opportunity for people to simply found a political party or to simply go and kind of organize explicitly on a political basis. The Cairo Derby is the biggest fixture in the Middle East's football calendar. A bitter rivalry between Africa's two most successful teams, Ahli and Zamalek. So what we tend to see more of is a kind of an alternative politics, which means people within society are likely to gather through things that might seem innocuous from the perspective of the regime.

This is politics. Zamanek is the government. You know, well, you're not going to really prevent people from gathering in stadiums or coffee houses or, you houses or hookah lounges where they're going to sit and watch matches and support their favorite clubs. And at the same time, that then becomes an opportunity by which people do ultimately, naturally engage in political discussion. The Ahle Club's ideas, ethics, strategies, plans

didn't contradict with the idea of revolution. They are actually the same. And so the idea that football fan groups were a part of the kind of the collective of people who mobilized in these mass protests in places like, you know, Tahrir Square or even in Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain, for instance, or in Yemen or in Syria or Libya or Algeria, these groups tended to already have that kind of sense of camaraderie, having already fought off security forces when they were confronting the police in stadiums. Fatal! Fatal!

Fatal! Fatal! Fatal! Fatal! Fatal! Ahmad Ezz! Fatal! So when there was this assault by the security forces in a number of these places, we end up seeing that it's actually the football ultra groups that tend to kind of stand firm in defense of the protesters in Tahrir Square. And I think that also then helped encourage the broader movements that were protesting and mobilizing in those days to be able to stand firm.

And so we saw quite an effective resistance to a lot of the typical crackdowns that we saw on the part of the state. All right, so you have this combination of beautiful game, extraordinary history of protest. But Abdullah, let me ask you now about the criticism of Qatar, because investigative reporting suggests that many migrant workers died while building these stadiums and all of this other infrastructure that you guys have gotten. Qatar's Amir, its leader, says essentially, the rest of the world is picking on us because we're a little Arab country. Do you think he has a point?

I happen to think that a lot of the questions that have been raised around the way that the Qatar World Cup has come together are incredibly valid and they're serious questions that need to be taken on without sort of any kind of equivocating. But I don't think it's been helpful that so much of these critiques relied on very borderline orientalist kind of narratives of just creating an exceptional situation that Qatar occupies

without actually taking on the kind of the much deeper serious issues having to do with things like the global flow of labor and capital and all of the various parties that are implicated. To just simply say, you know, this is just something that, you know, is just the product of a certain culture or a certain kind of specific environment as opposed to kind of thinking about all of these different forces that have converged to create the kind of conditions that exist. The conditions that exist include one that has made things very awkward for Qatar. On the face

of it, there is no staggeringly obvious reason for Qatar to have won the right to host the World Cup. It's smaller in size than Connecticut. It needed to build a plethora of stadiums. It built a new railway network. Everything needed to be built from scratch. And no less an authority than the U.S. Department of Justice says that in the process of competing to host the World Cup, Qatar did some bribing. And FIFA was all too happy to accept. It's coming up. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software

designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained, r-a-m-p.com slash explained,ards issued by Sutton Bank. Member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. Today Explained, World Cup edition. Tarek, tell me your full name and tell me what you do. Yeah, I'm Tarek Pandya. your full name and tell me what you do.

Yeah, I'm Tarek Pandya. I'm a global sports correspondent with the New York Times. A lot of that actually features the sort of byways and highways and the behind-the-scenes ways of the world of sport, notably football. What is FIFA exactly? FIFA is essentially the global governing body for the world's most popular sport. It is based in Zurich and it is composed of 211 member nations. In a sense, it has more members than the United Nations. Today, football is a global game. At FIFA, it's our responsibility to develop the game for future generations and to protect its integrity. But that also means never forgetting the principles

on which we were founded. FIFA hosts the World Cup every four years and about seven or eight years before a tournament begins, there is a jockeying for hosting this because there is nothing bigger in the world, perhaps say the Olympic Games than the Football World Cup. And FIFA starts a bidding competition, which lasts between 18 months and two years typically for each World Cup, and now is voted on by a representative of each of its 211 members at the Congress. For Qatar, this wasn't the case. This was done by a group called the FIFA Executive Committee, a high-powered band of men, and they were all men. Say I'm a country, I would really like to host the World

Cup, and I want to do everything above board. What do I typically do? How do I typically approach FIFA? You typically won't get the World Cup if you try and do everything above board. That's what history has shown us. No, Tarek. Oh, okay. Let's phrase that slightly differently. What do countries that really want to host the World Cup typically do with the understanding that it can't be done above board? Right. So on the face of it, there is a bid committee that is formed. We are just moments away from the big decision in Zurich, Switzerland, where football's ruling body will announce who will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Lots of nice video packages, celebrity endorsements,

trips to your country for the FIFA executive class. What will it mean to the region if the world's greatest sporting event your country for the FIFA executive class. What will it mean to the region if the world's greatest sporting event comes to the Middle East for the very first time? It happened in South Africa. You are really trying to curry favour with this group of important people that they may bestow their votes upon you. So you create a bid. It is a challenge.

It's always a challenge to to host a world cup but i think that we're definitely up to that challenge and towards the end there will be a bid book which is a multi multi-page book which will feature all the guarantees that fifa requires from security to hotel accommodation to what type of stadiums you have, transport, etc. And you would say, our offering is better than everyone else's. And guess what, we can also generate billions of dollars in revenue for you. And here's how. Unfortunately, I don't think most of the voters will ever read these books, because they in the past haven't. It's other things that have tended to sway their votes. As I said previously, it was a small group of people you had to curry favour with.

So in a sense, it was finding out what the quirks and peccadillos of each particular voter might be and how you might be able to influence them. In many cases, that has turned out to be cold, hard cash. Cash is a good quirk and it's a good peccadillo. It's 2022, so the lobbying started, by your math, somewhere around 2014, 2015. Well, in this case, it was a very strange process. Oh, what happened? Because Qatar actually started lobbying for the World Cup in, I believe, 2009. Because FIFA, in its wisdom at the time, decided to offer two World Cups in the same vote. It is an honour and a privilege to welcome you all to Zurich for the 2018 and the 2022 FIFA World Cup host announcement.

So the 2018 World Cup that went to Russia, and the 2022 World Cup. The winner to organise the 2022 FIFA World Cup is Qatar. That created conditions ripe for even more skullduggery than had been the norm before. It allowed different nations to collude with each other to create behind the scenes deals if you sort me out hook me up for for 2018 we will work behind the scenes to help you in 2022 scratch my back i'll scratch yours and let's come up with a deal all of this on the face of it based on fifa's rules and regulations at the time, and yes, they had rules and regulations, ethics rules,

flew in the face of those, but all of this was taking place. And so what do we know ultimately about why Qatar was chosen? Its bid was the most extravagant at the time. So it spent publicly, you know, almost 200 million on bidding, far more than everyone else. That meant sponsoring conventions in Africa where voters were hiring ambassadors like Zinedine Zidane, the France soccer legend, among others, for huge fees. So Qatar on that level was very visible. Thank you for believing in expanding the game. Thank you for giving Qatar a chance. And we will not let you down. You will be proud of us. You will be proud of the Middle East. And I promise you this.

Then it gets a little bit darker, I guess. What prompted these guys to choose Qatar, which among the bidders, the United States of America, Australia, Korea, and Japan for 2022. Among that group, it was clearly the most unsuitable offer in a sense, from an infrastructure point of view. It needed to pretty much rebuild or build an entire country to host this tournament. Let's not forget it's smaller in size than Connecticut, smaller than any previous World Cup host. It needed to build a plethora of stadiums. It built a new railway network, roads, hotels. Everything needed to be built from scratch. So it's very, very difficult to understand, in a sense of reality, in a way,

why these guys would choose Qatar. And then the only kind of open question is, what persuaded them to do it. And since then, there's been several investigations, media reports, you name it, about corruption within FIFA. The Department of Justice in the US, part of a broader investigation into soccer corruption, in an indictment said three members, and named them these three South Americans, had taken money to vote for Qatar. It doesn't say, though, that it was the Qataris that paid for this, and that creates this continuing gray area, this miasma

around what exactly happened. What has Qatar said about this indictment? Have they just tried to stay out of it? Qatar has pretty much held a solid line from the day on December the 2nd, 2010, when the former FIFA president opened the envelope to reveal it would host the World Cup, that it played by the rules, and that it has absolutely nothing to feel guilty about, nothing to apologize for, and that a lot of the attacks are, in essence, anti-Arab in some way, or sour grapes from those who lost. Did FIFA make any changes after that indictment, after any of this mess? Has FIFA changed at all? Well, FIFA was forced to change. I mean, the scandal, it's hard to overplay how big and what a shocking moment it was. Even by FIFA standards, these are extraordinary developments. At the behest of the US Attorney General, seven senior FIFA officials arrested at the crack of dawn concerning

allegations of fraud, racketeering and money laundering. That threatened FIFA's very existence. It was some of their most senior officials that were involved in this, they had to change. A reform committee was organized, the top leadership over the next months was removed, decapitated, and replaced with new people. The reforms have meant, for example, the World Cup is now chosen by the entire membership, 211 national soccer federations and not 24 people behind closed doors. The votes are made public, which they were not before. But what I would say is culturally, very little has changed. The behind closed door antics still exist. These highly paid sinecures for people who support the hierarchy are still well in place.

And this is very much in part of how FIFA has always been run. Qatar's Amir, its leader, says his country is being unfairly criticized, unfairly singled out. Is there anything that suggests he might have a point? I guess to have that opinion, at best, is naive. Because if you are going to want to host this, and you are hosting this, that level of scrutiny is to be expected particularly given the circumstances around Qatar its bid and then its decade-long build-up to staging the event the amount of building work the cost is unprecedented Qatar would say well that's not just for the world cup we would build this stuff anyway but really you, it's a tiny place,

it has to build eight stadiums in a race against time, and has involved the importation of some of the poorest people in the world to act as migrant labourers. Then you have the issues around other human rights, being gay is a criminal offence in Qatar. So a lot of this scrutiny surely is to be expected. Next Friday on Today Explained World Cup Edition, we're going to interview a migrant worker from Kenya who was employed in Qatar. And I promise you will not want to miss that one. Today's show, edited by Amina El-Sadi, produced by Halima Shah, engineered by Afim Shapiro, fact-checked by Laura Bullard. I'm Noelle King, and it's Today Explained. Outro Music Thank you.