Power
Qatar World Cup
On Sunday, November 20, the Football World Cup kicks off with Qatar versus Ecuador. After years of discussion about the oil and gas state, the focus can finally turn to football. Jaap de Groot was in Zurich on December 2, 2010, when the emirate in the Persian Gulf was awarded the World Cup, and was among the first to argue that choosing Qatar was a mistake. On the eve of the world's largest sporting event, he takes stock on location in Qatar.
On Sunday, November 20, the Football World Cup will kick off with Qatar - Ecuador and, after years of discussions about the oil and gas state, the focus can be turned to football. Jaap de Groot was there when the 2 World Cup was awarded to the emirate in the Persian Gulf in Zurich on December 2010, 2022, and was one of the first to reveal that the choice of Qatar was a mistake. On the eve of the largest sporting event in the world, he takes stock on location in Qatar.
Driving through Doha you immediately notice the price of petrol: fifty cents per litre. In that respect, Qatar does take good care of its citizens. Then I pass a large building with 'Dutch Institute for Hotel Management' on the facade. Not surprising in itself, because all major hotel chains have branches in the mini-state. Do you want to learn the hotel trade? There were internships in Qatar. The selection of the Dutch national team has chosen to stay in Doha at the St. Regis Hotel, which has 335 very luxurious rooms. The stately building is one of the many top locations in Qatar, where there is apparently a five- or four-star hotel on every street corner. Then you drive past the Four Seasons, the Kempinski looms further away and there are five hotels from the Hilton chain within a radius of five kilometers.
It is reminiscent of Singapore, also a country with a small local population and a huge international influx. At the 1997 census, Qatar's population was only 522.000. In 2004 this had risen to 744.000 and has now risen to 2,8 million. The World Cup has clearly had an influence on this, because since the tournament was awarded in 2010, the population has increased by no less than 900.000, an increase of more than 30 percent. This cannot be seen separately from the enormous prosperity in one of the richest countries in the world. The money beckons, so they come from all parts of the world. One of them is Gianni Infantino, president of the World Football Federation FIFA, who is under criminal investigation in Switzerland. Living in Qatar, he has little to fear from Swiss justice, and in the meantime he also lives there like a grand prince. Because there is an enormous amount of money in Qatar. My supervisor Mubarak picked me up in the latest Lexus. So brand new that everything inside was still in the plastic. Mubarak had clearly not yet given himself time to unpack his luxurious car.
Crossed card
I will be in Qatar on Friday, June 10, the day on which the Football World Cup should normally have started in the oil and gas state. At least that is what was decided on December 2, 2010 by the FIFA Executive Committee, half of whom are now behind bars. Thanks to the FBI, not coincidentally from the country that lost the election to Qatar. This is aside, because when it became clear within 24 hours that the allocation of the 2022 World Cup had been decided, the associations, including the KNVB, continued to look the other way. That's why I have difficulty with the politically correct stuff about Qatar and the discussion about whether we should go or not. Because it comes twelve years too late. Moreover, it is now too easy to ignore the fact that all external pressure has indeed led to improvements. According to the United Nations, social changes have taken place in the last five years to such an extent that Qatar is even a leader in the Middle East in many areas. This also applies to Dubai, where planes full of Dutch people leave the flowers outside every week.
An important improvement is the dismantling of the kafala system, whereby visa and work permit are contractually linked to one employer. Workers are now allowed to change jobs without their boss's permission. The confiscation of passports is also actively prevented and there has been a statutory minimum wage since 2021. It is also clear that the rumored figure of 6.500 deaths, which would have occurred during the construction of the World Cup stadiums, has been taken out of context. This concerns all migrants from Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka who died in Qatar between 2010 and 2020. So including the construction workers and not just the construction workers. It is still not clear how many actually died during the construction of the eight stadiums. Walking through the streets of Doha, I wonder how anyone can even work in this sweltering heat. On the day that the World Cup should have started in accordance with Qatar's winning bid, the thermometer reached 51 degrees. And I wonder how docile the more than two hundred football associations could have been to initially opt for a summer World Cup in Qatar for 2022. A period in which you can fry a T-bone steak on the asphalt here. Anyone who had googled at the time would have already seen that temperatures between 40 and 50 degrees are normal in June. Yet then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his buddies got away with it. We now know why. About half of the voting FIFA members had received an envelope with its contents shoved under the hotel room door. So the weather forecast screens went black for a moment.
Ventilator
After which, in 2015, it was decided to change the entire football calendar for 2022 and hold the World Cup in the winter. Once again, all associations, including the KNVB, allowed it to happen. But let's be honest: the Qataris themselves had promised on December 2, 2010 to provide all stadiums with air conditioning. Countless air conditioners. That's why I decided to take a closer look twelve years later in the Khalifa International Stadium, where the Netherlands - Ecuador will be played on Friday, November 25. And indeed, countless round holes have been made in the stands wall at throat height. Just like on the first ring. Holes all around the stadium and always at a distance of one meter. These are the air conditioners that blow cold air into the stadium, which is pumped towards the stadium from a central cold room in the heart of Qatar. The cold room contains an iceberg, against which ten Titanics would have no chance. And indeed, ten meters from the holes in the stadium wall, the temperature appears to have dropped from 51 to about 28 degrees.
Then the center spot, right under the open roof. Well, that broke out in a sweat. Although not 51 degrees, but well above 30. But who cares, I saw the Dutch play against Ireland during the 1994 World Cup in Orlando at 40 degrees. With Frank Rijkaard on a ventilator for minutes afterwards. A few days later, the Netherlands – Brazil were also played at 35 degrees in Dallas, so what are we talking about? Then the World Cup continued in the summer, everyone could go on holiday afterwards and all competitions started on time in August and September. Things will be different in Qatar. The air conditioning in the stadiums prove that conditions certainly do not have to be more extreme than in 1994 or during the 2014 World Cup in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza near the Netherlands – Mexico. Yet in 2015, FIFA decided to change the entire football calendar seven years later and have the World Cup completed within 29 days between November 20 and December 18. This means that in Qatar games must be played every three days, while the standard is four days. Moreover, the KNVB did not make a sound in 2015 and resigned itself to the fate imposed by FIFA president Sepp Blatter & Co.
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