Nasser Al Khater, the CEO of FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, asserted that some of the criticisms of Qatar’s World Cup hosting were motivated by political objectives and urged against using the sporting event as a forum for political discourse.
Al Khater was interviewed yesterday on the issue of “What is behind the attack on Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup?” for the Al Jazeera Channel program “Lil Qissate Baqiya” (For the Rest of the Story).
Announcing that Qatar welcomes everyone but asks that they respect our culture, Al Khater added that “some European countries believe that hosting the FIFA World Cup is their exclusive right because they have held 11 of the total of 22 tournaments.”
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He said that Qatar faced fierce campaigns since the wining of the right for hosting the mega sporting event. “The campaigns had begun criticizing the size of Qatar, climate issue, legacy of football etc.”
Regarding the success of the World Cup, he said: “We are expecting about 1.2 million fans so the arrangements are being made accordingly.
“As many as 40 millions applications for match tickets were received. Three million tickets have been sold. These figures suggest that Qatar will host the most successful tournament in the history of FIFA World Cup.” Speaking about the response of Qatar to the critics, he said: “Our top priority is to make the tournament a great success. We responded to criticism in a very clear way through media but some did not deserve to be responded. We are expecting from media outlets to exercise professionalism.”
Responding to reports exaggerating deaths of workers while building the stadiums, he said only three workers had died. He said international standards of occupational health and safety measures have been implemented.
“The media outlets were focusing on highlighting the negativity. This figure was provided to them many times but unfortunately they did not publish this.”
He said the campaigns behind Qatar World Cup have political goals and are highly racist as they thought that how Qatar as a small Arab and Islamic country can compete with big countries which according to them deserved more to host the tournament.
According to Al Khater, “our strategy was to organize the first FIFA World Cup in Arab countries and the most prosperous one in the tournament’s history.”
He asserted that the West’s perception of the Arab area as a hotbed of strife will alter as a result of the World Cup.
One million World Cup attendees will contribute first-hand knowledge about Qatar and its people when they return to their home countries, according to Al Khater.
