QATAR, A PLACE WHERE HISTORY WAS MADE

ALTHOUGH MANY CRITICIZED FIFA’S DECISION TO ENTRUST THE ORGANIZATION OF THE 2022 FIFA WORLD CUP TO A SMALL DESERT COUNTRY WITH MARGINAL SPORTS HISTORY IN THE MONTH OF DECEMBER (A PRECEDENT IN ITSELF), THE WORLD CUP IN QATAR TURNED OUT TO BE THE BEST ONE SO FAR. FANTASTIC FOOTBALL WAS WITNESSED, THE MATCHES WERE VISITED BY RECORD NUMBERS OF SPECTATORS, AND THE FEWEST SECURITY BREACHES AND PROBLEMS WERE RECORDED. HOW DID THE HOSTS DO IT?

n By: Nermin Kabahija

To better understand what a small Gulf country covering an area five times smaller than Bosnia and Herzegovina managed to achieve on a global scale, we must tell the story of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar from its beginning. To the surprise of many, Qatar won the bid to host the popular World Cup in 2010. FIFA’s decision to allow this country to host one of the largest global sports events caused many negative reactions and controversies, since Qatar is situated on the Arabian Peninsula, where daily temperatures reach over 50 degrees, and the country does not have a developed football infrastructure. It was decided that the World Cup must be played in December, which is a precedent in itself because it requires changes in the organizations of all football associations participating in the championship. Following this, the dissatisfaction in the global sports community culminated soon afterward. Some claimed that it was impossible to hold such an event in the desert, that, because of this, Qatar would not receive visitors, that the infrastructural problems were insurmountable, and that the safety of the visitors would be jeopardized.

In short, a total collapse of the organizer’s endeavors was almost called for. Lawsuits were even filed, demanding the annulment of the decision and the reallocation of the hosting rights to a European or another country. “Qatar is a mistake. It is too small of a country. Football and the World Cup are too big for it,” said Sepp Blatter, former president of FIFA. “To be clear once again, Qatar is a mistake and the choice was bad,” Blatter said just a few days ahead of the start of the Cup. Without going into how Qatar really won the organization of the event and whether there was alleged vote buying in the Organizing Committee for the selection of the World Cup host, now that the curtain has come down on the World Cup, one thing must be said - Qatar won, plain and simple! And that goes for every aspect. A complete outsider managed to organize the best, most interesting, most visited, and safest World Cup in history, thus shutting the mouths of all critics, and putting itself on the global map of the most prestigious and most desirable tourist destinations. In the following article, we will try to explain what the hosts did in order to achieve this success, primarily with the most important aspect of the event from our point of view – its security.

To host the FIFA World Cup, seven attractive stadiums were built from scratch alongside one sports facility which was refurbished. The road, railway, and airport infrastructure was either improved or built from scratch, more than 15,000 surveillance cameras were installed, and many innovative security solutions were applied in the field of access control. Finally, a veritable small army of security guards and other workers was hired. The number of visitors was truly impressive and exceeded one million, while almost 3.4 million tickets were sold. All of them could enjoy stadium amenities the likes of which the world has never seen before – these being luxuriously equipped facilities with air-conditioned stands. Despite a large number of guests, the World Cup took place in a completely safe environment, where no serious security incidents related to terrorism, hooliganism, fan rampage, or public drunkenness were recorded. This was largely helped by the restricted distribution of alcoholic beverages during the event. Word has it that Qatar spent about 200 billion dollars on the organization of this event. Anyway, the investment was totally worth it. It should also be mentioned that the record for the most watched online sports broadcast event in history was also broken in Qatar – the final match between France and Argentina was watched by more than 2.5 billion people worldwide.

It is generally known that the organization of major sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup or the Olympics is the most complex security operation. Within their scope, security has become one of the most important factors of entire projects and, as such, is absolutely essential for their success. How important this segment is can be gleaned from the examples of earlier events, such as the Olympic Games in Sydney whose security budget amounted to about 200 million dollars. Today, these amounts are much higher and are measured in billions. “The evolution of