The European Media Campaign against the Qatar World Cup: Under Scrutiny

Saja Torman

Researcher at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha and Editorial Secretary for the journal Hikama, published by the ACRPS and the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. She previously worked as a research and teaching assistant at Birzeit University, where she earned a BA in public administration and an MA in international studies at the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies. She also holds an MA in public policy and international cooperation from the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

Aicha Elbasri

Researcher at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and former United Nations diplomat. She has held several media positions at the UN Department of Global Communications in New York, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Sudan, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), the United Nations-African Union Hybrid Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) for the Arab states. Her research interests include United Nations peacekeeping operations and African studies. She earned a PhD in French literature from Savoy University in France and in 2015 received a Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling for reporting on UN violations in Darfur.

From the very moment that FIFA announced Qatar had won the bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, objections rang loud. Doubts were raised about the Qatar’s ability to pull off an event of this scale as a tiny country that had never qualified for a World Cup final before, lacking at that time the necessary sporting infrastructure. As time went on, this criticism evolved into accusations of corruption regarding the decision-making process and a campaign to discolour the host country’s efforts, with demands to withdraw hosting rights based on allegations of corruption, human rights violations and concerns about the Gulf climate. Even as the World Cup successfully set off in Qatar, this campaign reached new heights. It adopted a broader political dimension represented in the European Parliament resolution on the situation of human rights in the context of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar and the Transport for London decision to ban all advertisements related to Qatar on public transport and taxis. This paper thus investigates the substance of and motivations behind these allegations and whether or not the campaign has been successful.

Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies