Qatar, a tiny gulf nation, is hosting the world’s largest sports tournament: the FIFA World Cup. This tournament held once every four years is the biggest global sporting event. FIFA audits showed that 3.7 billion people watched the last World Cup held in Russia in 2018 – that is half of the world. Consequently, many countries aspire to host the event as it is a source of tourism and an opportunity for national branding on a global scale.

I remember watching the last World Cup in Nairobi. The cafes and restaurants will be full during matches and everyone’s eyes will be glued to the television. I watched the first match of this World Cup in a cafe in Taksim, Istanbul which was full of international students and tourists. The atmosphere was exhilarating as the world’s biggest sporting event commenced.

A World Cup in the desert

The Qatar World Cup is not only unique, but it is also significant in different ways. While it is the first World Cup hosted by an Arab-Muslim nation and held in the winter, it would not be wrong to say that it was also the most criticized World Cup of all time since the Qatar World Cup 2022 has been under "attack" from the very first moments.

It seems that there was a concerted, sustained and choreographed criticism of the hosting nation as the tournament approached. It will go down in history as one of the most criticized, smeared and challenged World Cups. One would wonder why this is the case as previous tournament hosts include: Nazi Germany in 1938, Argentina under military dictatorship in 1978, the U.S. in 1994 two years after the deadly Los Angeles riots and Russia in 2018. An article published in The Economist had this heading: "In defence of Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup."

Who is attacking Qatar that The Economist is addressing?

Qatar won the bid to host the World Cup in 2010. Even before Qatar started its preparations for building brand-new stadiums, its bid to hold the tournament was challenged – and sometimes ridiculed. Newspapers, sports pundits and analysts argued that Qatar is not a footballing nation. Others alleged Qatar bribed FIFA officials to win the bid to host the World Cup.

Nevertheless, Qatar 2022 being the first World Cup in the Arab and Muslim world has garnered a lot of excitement and euphoria in the Middle East but also sustained criticism, particularly from the Western media, and threats of a boycott by European teams. To understand why this World Cup is loathed and discredited already, one has to grapple with the subtle connotations of football as a European game. In his book "Zonal Marking: The Making of Modern European Football," Michael Cox delineates how football as a game becomes intertwined with national identity, self-esteem and pride in Europe. And the recent influence of Gulf oil money on the football industry has scratched some hubris.

The return of Orientalism

Long before the World Cup started, I was amazed by the flood of news, opinion articles and documentaries that I periodically saw on news sites. They all questioned Qatar 2022 on moral and cultural grounds. The available arsenal of narratives was simple: Qatar exploited and mistreated workers in constructing stadiums; the World Cup timing would disrupt European league games; fans would not be able to drink beer during the matches; it is illegal to be gay in Qatar; Qatar is ruled by a totalitarian monarch; Qatar’s bid to host the World Cup is fraudulent – and the list is long.

More interestingly, one sports commentator lamented that he could not imagine a World Cup football match in the open desert while camels are grazing around. The Orientalist contempt was subtle; it lurked behind the genuine criticisms.

I hold that most of the criticisms surrounding labor exploitations and mistreatments in Qatar – and the larger Gulf nations – are valid and legitimate. Qatar needs to address these labor issues substantially and restitute if migrant workers were killed, harmed or injured while working in the stadiums. Gulf nations have a poor track record when it comes to migrant labor.

Indeed, one of the significances of this World Cup is that it has brought attention to the brutal modern-day slavery, the Kafala system, in the whole Middle East. This is a system of employment contracts that leads inevitably to workers’ exploitation and dehumanization.

Three lessons from Qatar 2022

As Qatar 2022 comes to an end this weekend, there will be three takeaway points.

First, football is no longer necessarily a European game and there should be no special considerations for European fans only in relation to alcohol consumption, favorable climate conditions or geographical location. We should all prepare for future World Cups in Vietnam, Malaysia, Cuba, Zambia, India, Finland etc. The beautiful game has gone global. It will be played under different climatic and cultural spheres.

Second, FIFA is corrupt to the core. No World Cup hosting bid has ever been without controversy. But it is only when non-Europeans win hosting bids that allegations go through the roof. I remember sports pundits alleging that South Africa hosted the World Cup because it bribed officials and used the charisma of the late Nelson Mandela to sway votes.

Moreover, before South Africa 2010 started, there were exaggerated reports of gang violence, robbery, rape issues targeting tourists and fans (particularly white fans), and unfavorable heat levels all over the news. South Africa was being portrayed as a scary place to host the World Cup.

Third, racism is a structural problem in sports and sporting culture. FIFA needs not only to tackle racism and biases on the field but also in football punditry and analysis. The language and discourses used to talk about football border on racism. Football commentary is full of racist tropes such as the physicality myth of African teams and the tactics, talents and intelligence of European teams.

Finally, criticism and moral scrutiny is healthy and ought to be celebrated virtues in our chaotic capitalist modernity. However, if the criticism is employed to undermine, smear and discredit, then it breaches the limits of criticism.

Sports have the latent function of bringing different nations, peoples and cultures together and hence celebrating both our differences and shared humanity. Apart from the competition, adrenaline and entertainment, sports are also platforms to express opinions, ideologies and worldviews. The Iranian national team’s silence during the national anthem in solidarity with the protests in Iran is a typical example of sporting events as an arena of political and social expression. Hence, Qatar 2022 will not differ from the others, except for more political drama.