The championship will take place in November 2022
II off in a hyper-modern Bedouin tent. “It’s a unique format: fans can see two matches a day and the teams don’t travel”
Doha -.The World Cup seen from the Aspire control room is the photo of a hyper-controlled tournament and all to be deciphered. Dozens of screens inside this spaceship where the entire sport of Qatar was born and much of its pride. We are in the heart of the most talked about organization in history, where behind every single computer there is someone who monitors a corner of one of the stadiums and any centimeter there is behind, around, beyond. Each single seat of any of the systems can be enlarged to obtain a clear photo of whoever occupies it. In these parts, cameras have never been a problem.
Control is everywhere and it is also the nerve center of this strange, unprecedented, World Cup ready to debut in less than a year, on 21 November 2022 inside the Al Bayt which takes its name and shape from the Bedouin tents raised to give hospitality to the desert. Control is also the question mark for the first Arab state to have the honor of inviting the world for the most popular demonstration. The Olympics tune in more people, the World Cup moves like no one and obviously Qatar, the smallest place that has ever managed them, faces a series of unknowns and judgments. How much will it allow itself to be changed, contaminated, opened? How long will it take to practice the habit of overseeing every movement? How much will it surprise you? How ready is it? A journey is not enough to understand it, but there are clear coordinates, legitimate expectations and mirages.
We are talking about a place that expands for only 11, 571 km², more or less 160 km from north to south and about eighty from east to west: 2, 9 million inhabitants, minimally residents and one in nine is an immigrant. In India there would be 284 Qataris and there are about 700,000 Indians, poorly counted, who work in the microscopic and very rich country of the gulf.
There is a man who at the same time supervises the most concentrated World Cup and already selects the cities for the most widespread one, scheduled for 2026 and scattered between the USA, Canada and Mexico. Colin Smith, at the head of every FIFA competition, transforms contradictions into opportunities for business: «We are aware that bringing teams and fans to such a small nation presents problems and challenges, but it will also be a unique experience. When did the public ever get the chance to see two games on the same day? And the teams will not have to move, each will always have the same base, linked to the same training ground. Zero travel and more rest ». In Russia, in 2018, and even more so in Brazil, in 2014, travel has become controversy. Comparing the number of km traveled by the national teams, enormous differences were discovered which were then translated into disparities in recovery times. Problem canceled, but others arise: 1.2 million visitors are expected and to guarantee each of the 32 teams (which will increase to 48 from the next edition) an exclusive hotel frequented only by their staff, the number of beds, already much poorer than the average, it has reduced to less than 100,000, almost all the rooms are already booked and the few available for the group stage exceed the price of 1000 dollars per night. Smith remains calm, even if the theme prompts him to a long sigh: “There will be a mix of different solutions, other types of accommodation, villages, residential complexes, the hospitality of a region that is very excited to have a World Cup in this part of the world ». Someone will fly from Dubai to Doha, less than an hour, not exactly a low-cost journey although it is possible that certain discounts are included in the purchase of the ticket. The «Fan Id», the spectator’s identity card, invented by the Russians and extended beyond the security reasons, which still remain, is borrowed. The recognition of the fan links the documents to the entrances to the stadiums and can also be used to travel on the brand new subway and for more. It is the world format that evolves and transforms after Qatar. Smith explains the system. “Until 2017 the local organizing committees had the reins of the project, here we are in the hybrid phase with a joint venture and from the 2023 Women’s World Cup we will pass to one hundred percent control of Fifa”. It also means total responsibility on the work network which has created a lot of trouble and drama here. And inevitable doubts.
The stadiums are impressive, wonderful, important: Qatar has built them not only for the World Cup, but as landmarks, monuments of its own culture. Building them was an adventure, far from safe. Until September 2020 there was kafala, the halter law that effectively makes workers slaves. With that structure anyone who was employed on a construction site handed over their passport, could not change jobs, had to submit to the grueling hours imposed, in brutal conditions. The Qatar was the first Islamic country to get rid of kafala, but it used it in the 10 years it took to get the infrastructure, to change Doha, the city-state that hosts seven of the eight stadiums. Since March 2021 there has also been a requirement for a minimum wage, significant progress that probably would not have been made without the pressures associated with the World Cup and also steps too young to assess its reliability. It will take years to judge the extent of the cultural change. Now Qatar is trying to fine companies that do not comply with the new codes, yet many companies are used to exploiting labor and have not stopped doing so. Above all it is difficult to analyze the numbers, more than 6,500 immigrants who died in the last decade and the “natural causes” are beyond logic. Many deaths, as evidenced by data from Amnesty and Human Watch, are due to heart and respiratory crises that can be the result of prolonged fatigue in unsustainable climates. Together with the new rules, a start that is certainly not negligible, the desire for a real push for progress on the front of freedom will be needed.
In Qatar homosexuality is a crime, they declare themselves open to hosting anyone and the gray area between the tolerated and the forbidden remains unacceptable. We are in the second World Cup which has a problem with freedom. After Russia and Qatar, there is an Olympics in China in two months which argues with diplomatic boycotts. Sport has reached a point of no return. It is true that any spotlight turned on in areas previously not considered can be useful, but it is now necessary to ask for basic guarantees to accept applications. Much is different today than in 2010, the controversial year of the 2022 World Cup. Qatar can be a turning point: standing at the crossroads you can see many lights, great ideas, different and crucial doubts lit up like the spies in the control room at the fourth floor of the Aspire control center. The spaceship from which the countdown has now started. –
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