At Lusail Stadium on Sunday late afternoon, as France and Argentina simultaneously fight for a third star on their shirt and a higher plane for each of their players, it will be tempting to look several hundred metres upward into the warm night sky. Follow the strings to find the puppet master: this is Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani’s theatre. The Emir of Qatar is the only person who truly cannot lose on Sunday.
This could not have landed any better for Qatar. They got the group-stage upsets; they got Asian progression to the knockouts; they got record results for African teams; they got Arabic comradeship with Morocco’s historic run; they got a final between Europe’s best and South America’s best. They got people saying “actually, if you take out all the other stuff this was a great World Cup“, as if Sofiane Boufal playing well counteracts people dying whilst building the stadiums.
More than that, they got Qatar vs Qatar in Qatar on a Qatari TV station that will broadcast to their Middle Eastern rivals, a live feed of triumphalism sent directly into the eyes. Kylian Mbappe faces Lionel Messi, Paris Saint-Germain squared. Two indirect employees of this state’s global sports grab meet to decide who wins the Golden Ball and who the Golden Boot. Qatar bred the goose and own the rights to its golden eggs.
Coincidence is often the misdiagnosis for thorough preparation. Or, to bastardise Arnold Palmer’s quote, the more money we spend the luckier we seem to get. PSG, Qatari-owned, provided the biggest-name attacker for each of Brazil, France and Argentina, the three pre-tournament favourites. Those were also the pre-tournament top three for the Golden Ball betting. Sometimes the numbers just make sense.
Qatar has reportedly been pretty put out by the criticism from western media before and during this tournament. We say “reportedly” as an auto-response here, but Al Thani publicly insinuated that attacks on human rights issues veered into orientalism as if the scrutiny that comes with hosting a World Cup was a surprise.
But Qatar has lucked out with the final. South American supporters have paid little heed to off-field issues (Messi is the one true Argentinean obsession). Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, went beyond tacit acceptance this midweek: “I was able to see the Emir of Qatar. Also, you have to recognise that Qatar is organising this competition particularly well. Security is good.”
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What time the World Cup third-place play-off kicks off and how to watch Croatia vs Morocco16 December, 2022So if this is anyone’s final, more than Messi’s or Mbappe’s or Gianni Infantino’s, it is the Emir’s. When still only a prince, he founded Oryx Qatari Sports Investments (QSI) in 2005. He gave Nasser El-Khelaifi the funds to purchase PSG outright. He funded the foundation of the BeIn Media Group arm of Al Jazeera in 2014. He understood the need to earn soft power in the club game to earn respect around the top tables of the sport.
By the time Al Thani became Emir in 2013, the World Cup bid had already been won. But its success was not a done deal. Al Thani needed to establish Qatar as a legitimised global player that could flex its muscles to its neighbours and carve out a piece of their tourism cash cow. He had to persuade the religious conservatives that money had not become his own guiding force and so Qatar’s too.
And he pulled it off. Hundreds of millions will watch Sunday’s final and think not of the human collateral damage – modern slavery, criminalisation of LGBT+ communities, the spiralling climate crisis. They will not think of QSI nor even of PSG. They will think of Messi and Mbappe, glory and despair, sport not sportswashing. A dozen years ago, the most controversial World Cup in history was awarded to a tiny nation state. At that point began the most expensive – and expansive – marketing campaigns that sport has ever known. That culminates on Sunday.
Culminates, but never stops. On Monday, Doha will wake to a series of questions: what work is there for migrant workers now? What happens to all of these empty apartments? How do businesses sustain themselves when everything was geared towards these four weeks and the mass influx of foreign visitors (that was actually around 40 per cent below estimates)?
All valid and serious questions, but ones that will trouble the proletariat more than the ruling class. Maybe this cycle – ambition, aggressive expansion, culmination – is forever destined to repeat because when it ceases the questions can be heard and there’s enough money to ensure it never stops repeating. There’s an Asian Cup to host. There’s an Olympics bid to win. There are worlds left to conquer or pay for.
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