Redux: Qatar To Muslims Fearing World Cup: Go To Mecca & Stadiums To the Poor
Qatar To Muslims Fearing World Cup: Go To Mecca
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Qatar defeated both Australia and the United States to host the 2022 World Cup, the first for the Middle East. In another first Russia will host 2018. And Brazil, yet another first, will host the next one in 2014.
Qatar’s pitch was incredibly impressive. Home to natural gas and oil fortunes and with a small citizen population of less than a million to care for, the tiny emir-dom is lavishly wealthy with plenty of money to spend on its bid. It promises several new state of the art stadiums, including one with a full-circling monitor:
And when objections were raised about the summer heat in Arabia, the Qataris responded by noting that their stadiums will be A.C.’ed even the open-air ones. Qatar, it should be noted already beats every other nation in terms of CO2 emissions on a per capita basis, but the high-emissions for the stadiums does not bother FIFA.
Qatar promises a well-organized and well-financed games with above-par facilities. But it was still a bad choice. First: Qatar’s summer heat is stringing on the sink. What are fans supposed to do after they leave the stadium?
The nation is too small. It is a peninsula so one “city” will be next to another “city” for the hosting games and does not offer fans the diversity of landscape which a Germany or Brazil does.
And, lastly, it is still to conservative and traditional to host soccer fans who like their beer and hookers. And the authorities recognize this. Thus they may loosen social morales for the games. And this has unsettled conservative Muslims. The authorities response: Go To Mecca.
No joke. The government has told Muslims that if they want to avoid the mass infusion of tourists and their ways then they can leave and spend the month in Mecca.
Redux: And stadiums to the poor:
FIFA bids usually include proposals to benefit the locals, especially the poorer ones. As Qatari citizens (excluding the 85% of the population who are foreigners doing most of the menial and many of the clerical jobs) are already the world’s richest people per head, the government says it will dismantle several stadiums after the tournament and ship them off to poor countries.
Maybe nearby Yemem could use one.
