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Qatar World Cup (Read 19998 times)

TobyD

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Qatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 08:17:25 am
Watch or boycott? I'd usually watch at least some of the world cup but feel pretty revolted at almost everything about this one. 
« Last Edit: November 19, 2022, 07:03:17 pm by duncan »

JamieG

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#1 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 09:05:57 am
I normally love the World Cup but I can’t do this one. Simply unjustifiable this time. We’re all hypocrites about lots of things in life, turning a blind eye when it suits, but there has to be some lines you won’t cross.

cheque

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#2 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 09:12:42 am
Virtually none of the people and organisations who could and should have made a difference to it by boycotting or even speaking out (football associations, players, ex-players, fans who actually go to World Cups etc.) did so there’s no point me making the token gesture of not watching matches on the telly because it wouldn’t affect the state of Qatar or FIFA but it would affect me.

I intended to boycott all the sponsors but I’ve just realised that one’s Visa who it will probably be impossible to avoid using.

I will be watching fewer matches than usual (I watched every one in 2018) though because

-It’s hard to get psyched because the whole thing stinks.

-There are four matches a day for most of the group stage which is just too many and quite a few are while I’m working.

-A late autumn World Cup. Just that detail means it doesn’t feel like a World Cup.

It’s of course not the first time that it’s been held in a dodgy country (1934, 1978 and 2018 being the previous ones) but what’s amazing to me is how inappropriate a host Qatar is on simply practical levels and how little they’re doing to make it like an actual World Cup. Russia surely set the standard of hosting a completely normal tournament that even the “wokest” sections of the world’s media felt compelled to cover in the classic “they’ve been great hosts, everywhere you go it’s been a fantastic atmosphere, we’ve seen no crowd trouble, it’s really made me realise what a great country this is etc. etc.” manner that’s surely the target for hosting big sporting events when you’re a dictatorship but Qatar don’t seem to really care about that (the facilities for fans are apparently shaping up to be “a cross between the Fyre Festival and Woodstock 99”  :lol: ) and are rolling back the compromises they made in that direction with hours to go. :popcorn: Hopefully it will be a complete embarrassment for FIFA with the external factors overshadowing the football even in the mainstream sport media because that’s the only way at this stage that any progress can be made on their utter corruption.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2022, 09:20:51 am by cheque »

JamieG

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#3 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 09:32:23 am
I don’t agree that not watching it, won’t have an effect. If enough people refuse to engage that does have an impact.

TobyD

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#4 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 10:01:40 am
One thing is for certain, Quatar is hosting an event for millionaires. The experience of being there sounds absolutely terrible, unless you are extremely wealthy, and only passingly interested in football.
I'm very far from having any great insight on football, though I usually enjoy watching it; does the timing not mean that the European teams or players that play in European leagues will be knackered? As far as I understand virtually everyone thinks it's going to either Brazil or Argentina anyway.
I'd like to think I'd avoid it all, but I'll probably end up watching a few bits.

JamieG

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#5 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 10:02:37 am

petejh

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#6 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 11:00:53 am
This is definitely the least interested I've ever been in a world cup. I'd normally be quite excited but I hadn't actually realised this one begins today. Too much about it is wrong - location, politics and timing.  :thumbsdown:

jwi

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#7 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 11:02:32 am
Quatar is a more suitable country to hold an international sporting event than China or Russia. And no country in which corruption is held in check and there is vibrant local democracy will ever host a major sporting event again. (Paris, I am looking at you.) So I am just as fine with the world cup being held in Quatar as in any other poorly run city. "Just as fine" means that I will ignore it to the same degree as I ignore all major sport events.

JamieG

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#8 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 11:38:32 am
It isn’t really the bribery that bothers me so much. I mean it’s not great, but I can accept that. It’s the fact it is built by essentially modern slavery and resulted in an eye-watering number of deaths. That’s what I can’t deal with.

jwi

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#9 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 12:03:10 pm
I would be much surprised if major infrastructure projects in Russia or China had fewer deaths among workers than in Q, or if they exploited poor workers from central Asia in a less systematic way. It is not like their workers are unionised or can count on independent investigations into workplace accidents.

JamieG

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#10 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 12:26:57 pm
Yeah, I don’t know jwi, you could be right. The whole thing is a mess. Shows the effectiveness of sports-washing, that we mostly just accept it.

cheque

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#11 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 01:36:08 pm
does the timing not mean that the European teams or players that play in European leagues will be knackered?

Yes. Top level football’s basically been going on non-stop since it restarted after the pandemic. The reason there are five subs now is to mitigate the inevitable injuries.

It’s going to be fascinating to see how it affects the Premier League when it restarts. As it stands the clubs with the fewest World Cup-bound players have had (as you’d expect) the poorest start to the season but they’re basically getting a winter break while teams whose entire squad is playing in Qatar are having the complete opposite. Signings of Italian, Norwegian, Swedish etc. stars from this past summer look particularly shrewd.

As far as I understand virtually everyone thinks it's going to either Brazil or Argentina anyway.

South American teams usually win World Cups held outside Europe but not always and not for a while so maybe we’re due one.

It’s certainly hard to think of a European side who are truly “in a good moment” going into this but many of them look great on paper and some like Germany and Portugal should never ever be discounted because they’re so good at “finding a way” to win. Germany in particular haven’t gone into a tournament with such low expectations on them since unification which will work in their favour. France have the strongest squad but have their characteristic interpersonal troubles in the team.

Argentina are unbeaten since the last World Cup and won the Copa America, Messi is on great form and the death of Maradona seemed weirdly to lift the mental block he had when playing for his country. I think they’ll win it myself. Brazil’s chances are overstated going into every World Cup and I don’t think this one’s an exception personally, mainly because their defensive midfield is based around Casemiro and Fred and they still play Thiago Silva at the back. I haven’t watched a South American nation play a full game since the last World Cup mind  :lol:.

You’ve got to have a dark horse side that you reckon will do well (get to the semis unexpectedly I guess) but ends up doing nothing and the popular ones at Denmark and Uruguay. I’m going for Senegal even if Mané isn’t fit in time.

no country in which corruption is held in check and there is vibrant local democracy will ever host a major sporting event again

Can you give us a list of countries and sporting events that fit your criteria?

« Last Edit: November 19, 2022, 01:59:31 pm by cheque »

Moo

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#12 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 01:39:54 pm
I’d normally watch the World Cup despite not being a lover of football regularly.

Bollocks to it this year though, I didn’t watch the Russian propaganda show and I’ve been keenly aware of the massive amount of worker deaths associated with the current shambles.

I’m not sure sure I agree with you about the worker deaths jiwi, granted that those countries don’t have the track record we do on keeping people alive while they do their day job ( some nutters call that health and safety gone mad ). However knowing some guys who’ve worked out there building the stadiums and been told the horror stories first hand I’m pretty confident that this will be the highest number of construction worker fatalities for a World Cup in the recent times.

Wellsy

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#13 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 01:58:44 pm
I usually watch loads of matches, doubt I'll watch any this time I'm sorry to say.

chriss

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#14 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 05:35:17 pm
As one radio show said, 'getting Quatar Money out of the UK is like trying to get the egg out of a baked cake'.

It's in everything from Harrods to Seven Trent water. I don't agree with the country, but the football being there makes very little difference in reality. Plenty of other sports have been held in dodgy countries without people kicking off. I'm not sure why this has upset so many people?

TobyD

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#15 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 06:01:23 pm
I think Quatar is a less appropriate place than Russia despite them both being politically horrible places, Russia actually has some interest in football; a national team which has been okay at times, and a reasonable club or two; Quatar has no history of football whatsoever, they're clearly only hosting it to publicize themselves as a tourist destination, although I can't possibly imagine wanting to go there specifically myself.

For anyone interested 'The rest is history ' podcast has a great 2 part history of the world cup, with some entertaining trivia in it.

TobyD

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#16 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 06:02:29 pm
As one radio show said, 'getting Quatar Money out of the UK is like trying to get the egg out of a baked cake'.

It's in everything from Harrods to Seven Trent water. I don't agree with the country, but the football being there makes very little difference in reality.

Much like Russia then?

Will Hunt

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#17 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 06:06:04 pm
To everyone but Cheque: by all means slag them off, but surely you lose some of the intellectual highground when you repeatedly fail to spell the country's 5-letter name?

petejh

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#18 Re: Qatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 06:47:48 pm
See.. they don't even respect the 'u after q' rule!
« Last Edit: November 19, 2022, 07:04:08 pm by duncan »

duncan

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#19 Re: Qatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 07:22:16 pm
See.. they don't even respect the 'u after q' rule!

 ;D

The 2018 World Cup in Russia was sports washing for, as we're now finding out, an even more repellent regime. However Russia and the USSR has a long history of club and international football so it felt like a legitimate place to hold the competition even if the bid was as bent as a corkscrew. Plus beer counts as a soft drink there. Qatar has a population the size of Nottingham (or the Birmingham area if you include ex-pats) and no football culture whatsoever (except amongst some of the ex-pats). It is the obviousness of the charade that has put everyone's noses out.

chriss

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#20 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 09:03:59 pm
As one radio show said, 'getting Quatar Money out of the UK is like trying to get the egg out of a baked cake'.

It's in everything from Harrods to Seven Trent water. I don't agree with the country, but the football being there makes very little difference in reality.

Much like Russia then?

Yeah, sadly the UK is full of dirty money.

TobyD

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#21 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 19, 2022, 10:44:47 pm
To everyone but Cheque: by all means slag them off, but surely you lose some of the intellectual highground when you repeatedly fail to spell the country's 5-letter name?

Conceded, fair enough.

Although,  isn't it an anglicised version of the Arabic name anyway?

TobyD

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#22 Re: Quatar World Cup
November 20, 2022, 08:41:34 am
As one radio show said, 'getting Quatar Money out of the UK is like trying to get the egg out of a baked cake'.

It's in everything from Harrods to Seven Trent water. I don't agree with the country, but the football being there makes very little difference in reality.

Much like Russia then?

Yeah, sadly the UK is full of dirty money.

Although,  my comparison with Russia may not be very appropriate,  given that Qatar was a British protectorate until 1971, perhaps it's not surprising there are some links. 
I was also unaware that only 12% of the population of Qatar are Qatari,  there's a great article about the place here, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/its-football-on-a-heavy-acid-trip-but-the-qataris-have-what-they-crave-the-worlds-attention-wvz03vmq9?shareToken=ad75c7167b7d9141c61a38612a2d3f32

(Paywall I'm afraid)

TobyD

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#24 Re: Qatar World Cup
November 21, 2022, 08:09:31 pm
Great stat on BBC, the last person to score against Wales 8n the world Cup was... Pele.

 

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