Ready To Enjoy Qatar World Cup 2022

Qatar is a welcoming and hospitable country there's nothing that fans should be worried about all we have to do right now is just to show the world what an amazing World Cup this will be this country has been looked at Cordon scrutinized for 12 years I think there's also a real kind of determination from the organizers to prove the world wrong so we're going to take you through some of the basics about Qatar explain some of the controversies behind this world cup and tell you what to expect from the tournament foreign Qatar's capital and its only major city Qatar is a desert peninsula in the Gulf it's got only one land border that's with Saudi Arabia Dubai and Iran are also nearby they're just across the water and Qatar is Tiny it takes roughly two hours to drive from top to bottom nearly 3 million people live here but only 380 000 are actually Qatari Nationals everyone else has come here from all over the world to work in all sorts of jobs but a lot of what you see in Qatar today like most of these buildings it just wasn't here even 20 years ago if we go back even further around 100 years Qatar's biggest industry was Pearl diving but in the 1930s they struck oil and then in the 70s they discovered Natural Gas. Today Qatar has the third biggest gas reserves in the world and that enormous wealth has been used to transform the country there is a huge Ginger huge difference between 40 years ago and now today and I remember in 2000s 2001 2003 if anybody asked me where are you from and I say I'm from Qatar they asked me another question where is Qatar what is now they just asked me how it's look like how what is if we visit Qatar what do we need how it's the culture the profile is the growing dramatically and the the and Qatari government has succeeded actually in establishing themselves in the world map now on the political front Qatar is not a democracy like its neighbors in the Gulf it's a monarchy and the Emir essentially runs the government right now that's Sheikh tamim bin Hamad al-tani but it was his father the previous Emir who really kick-started Qatar's super fast growth came with a new vision and Mission in his mind and he wanted to develop the country whether an education and Healthcare and media and culture and sports Qatar actually uses those as tools and it's soft power but it's not just soft power Qatar's also tried to position itself as an important political player for example by mediating between groups fighting in countries like Sudan and Afghanistan well I think there's a few different goals that go back to a bigger strategy over the last kind of 25 years or so really thinking about the country as trying to solidify for itself a kind of a reputation on the international stage and the ultimate expression of Qatar wanting to be this big Global player is hosting the World Cup the 222 FIFA World Cup is Qatar foreign first got to bed I was over in in Zurich for the announcement at FIFA headquarters in 2010 the bid had started in 2009 very much seen as an outsider bit there was so many things against the size of the country the weather the perceived absence of football culture here so I think when set blatter pulled out Qatar from the envelope the whole footballing world was just in a state of shopping while over in Qatar people went wild SpongeBob since then a lot has happened there were years of corruption scandals at FIFA World football's governing body the FIFA sky Land seven people were now arrested as Top members of FIFA's board and Qatar along with Russia which hosted in 2018 was accused of essentially buying its winning bid it's something that Qatar has always denied we haven't seen anything definitive proving that that process was you know was corrupted but certainly the the questions being there I think already you know cast certain doubts I think in the minds of a lot of people there's another Shadow hanging over this tournament and that's the issue of Labor rights and the working conditions for the tens of thousands of people brought in to do all the construction many of them from countries in South Asia and Africa because Qatar like other Gulf countries relies almost entirely on foreign workers they play a key part of making Qatar's dream to host the swordka possible and yet they were governed by this very problematic system the system created an over-dependence of Migrant workers over on the employer or the sponsor so this created this power imbalance that actually drove labor abuse and exploitation in the country and across the Gulf region things like not being allowed to change jobs or leave the country without their employer's permission not getting paid and working in unsafe conditions and in extreme heat and workers have died during all the construction linked to the World Cup but the number of deaths is heavily disputed now here's what Qatar's Supreme committee the organizers of the World Cup told us in a statement despite our commitment to our rigorous standards it is unfortunately the case that as elsewhere in the world work-related injuries and deaths still occur on our projects and there have been three work-related fatalities and 37 non-work related deaths but a report last year by the un's international labor organization suggests a more complicated picture one that goes beyond just World Cup construction projects it found evidence of 50 fatal occupational injuries in Qatar in 2020 alone mostly in the construction industry and mostly workers from Bangladesh India and Nepal the ILO says it's hard to get accurate numbers because of gaps in the data they point to different institutions in Qatar categorizing and investigating work-related deaths differently so for example there is a concern on whether a large number of workers fatalities are caused by heat stress and whether these are not being properly identified as work related at the same time the ILO and rights groups like Amnesty International also say that Qatar's government has done a lot to improve things including reforming the sponsorship system so that workers can now change jobs or leave the country without having to ask for permission I don't think any country can claim to have done as much as Qatar has done in the past 10 years to improve the working conditions living standards the introduction of minimum wage I thought has been a Trailblazer in the region but there are you know certain legitimate criticisms to be raised at the same time there are some that we've seen from some segments and corners of the media and other International audiences that have tended to Veer a little bit toward a kind of very racialized way of looking at Qatar or kind of an orientalist way of thinking specifically about Qatar as if it exists completely outside of a very you know troubling kind of international labor system that is quite exploitative the Qatari government has said that the World Cup has been an important Catalyst for improving workers rights do you agree yeah definitely I think the spotlight that was brought by by this world cup pushed the Qatari government to at least commit to this to this reform process and up until 2017 there was a bit of a denial that there is an issue in 2017 we saw a shift in the political will that the government really kind of adopted DG phone process so the principles are in way better shape now but this implementation ending the sculpture of impunity ensuring that employers are respecting the law and migrant workers are fully protected from labor abuse and exploitation that's where some gaps remain and it's not just labor rights the World Cup has also drawn attention to other rights issues in Qatar for example homosexuality is criminalized here and that's been a big focus of criticism concerns are growing the Qatar is not doing enough to ensure the safety of IGBTQ plus fans some of the teams have raised the issue and the German and English captains say they'll wear rainbow armbands in support of the IGBTQ community the message from FIFA is to focus on the football and Qatar's organizing committee says everyone will be welcome I reiterate the message of Qatar being a safe country a hospitable country and I am confident that anybody that comes to factor is going to feel welcome and and safe most World Cup tournaments are spread across several cities but this one is super compact all eight stadiums are either Indochina or within an hour's drive so if you wanted to you can go to more than one match in a day but with all the fans concentrated in this small area it's going to be a huge operation to make it all run smoothly will there be enough accommodation will the traffic be gridlocked will the new Metro be able to handle the crowds then there's all the new entertainment they've prepared two newly built islands with rides and restaurants and a huge water park they're bringing in big names for three music festivals and there will be lots of fan zones so right now this is obviously a massive construction site but imagine this packed full of football fans fan zones will be among the designated areas where people can buy and drink alcohol alcohol will also be sold within the stadium perimeters before and after matches but it won't be allowed in the stands all this is a change from Qatar's usual rules around alcohol normally visitors can only buy it in some Hotel bars and restaurants it's also illegal to be drunk in public as long as people are behaving in a in a way that doesn't cause harm to themselves doesn't cause harm to others there's no destruction of property whether private or Republic and people are generally you know in good form then there shouldn't be an issue at all when it comes to local laws and Qatar and it seems that things are going to be a little more relaxed during the World Cup but that still leaves so many questions about exactly which laws are going to be enforced and how that's the thing about this world cup no one quite knows how it's going to unfold and a lot of different people have a lot of different takes on it but perhaps what's sometimes been lost in all the discussions around Qatar as hosts is another discussion about the significance of the World Cup being held in the Middle East for the first time foreign have you been to a football match before we're obviously very proud that FIFA is going to be in an Arab country as a person coming from the Middle East we're talking back in 2010 I was genuinely very very happy for a country in the Middle East to be able to host this Mega sporting event to showcase our culture so that for once I think the Arab world would be associated with what we really like Joy festivities and kind of steer away from the perception of the Arab world being Wars refugees terrorism football has deeper Roots here than has often been acknowledged and I think this tournament is really an opportunity to begin to kind of explore that history a little bit more and to see the way that the game has been truly globalized there has to be a little bit more of an acknowledgment that football specifically is not the domain of sort of one culture or one country or one region the World Cup final will take place in this Stadium on December 18th it's also Qatar's national day and that's no coincidence for Qatar this tournament is about out showcasing itself to the world and they're hoping the world likes what it sees.....