World Cup 2022 is a victory for globalization
Doha spent 10 billion dollars to build 8 stadiums to host the World Cup
Qatar built excellent facilities and infrastructure.
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Football boards.
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Street decorations.
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The stadiums are built to the latest specifications.
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In the coming weeks, the world will unite around an event that is repeated once every four years, but this time it is very different from all previous times, which is the FIFA World Cup hosted by Qatar.
The previous tournament hosted by Russia attracted about 3.5 billion people, who watched at least parts of it, while about a billion people watched the final match, or part of it.
As the prominent American economic analyst, Adrian Wooldridge, says in an analysis published by Bloomberg News, "There is no other sport around the world that rivals football in popularity," adding that football matches are watched anywhere with a television broadcast signal, and can be played from Side anyone can buy this round ball.
Exhilarating sports are spreading
And the joyful sport continues to spread in the world, as Chinese President Xi Jinping announced his country’s endeavor to host the FIFA World Cup, and win it by 2025. After the tournament, which will start in Qatar on November 20, the next tournament will be held in 2026 in both the United States and Canada. , and Mexico.
Not only that, but statistics show that the game is gaining wide popularity among women, as females accounted for 40% of the total viewers of the last World Cup.
In fact, the Qatar Championship is unique in many things, which happen for the first time in the history of the FIFA World Cup tournaments.
For the first time, the FIFA World Cup will be held in an Arab Muslim country, and for the first time it will be held in the winter, to avoid the high temperature in the summer, as the tournament was usually held in June and July.
On top of all this, and before that, it is the first time that the FIFA World Cup has become the centerpiece of a giant development project.
The Qatari government seeks to benefit from the country's natural gas wealth to ensure its long-term security and prosperity.
Since the mid-nineties, Qatar has increasingly focused on taking advantage of the power of football to improve the country's reputation, and Qatar hopes that Qatar will achieve financial returns from that.
Qatar Sports Investments also bought French club Paris Saint-Germain, transforming it from a crumbling club into an important European power.
Several Qatari institutions obtained sponsorship rights for a number of major European clubs, such as Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and AS Roma.
The Qatari government has spent generously to strengthen the local football league and increase its strength, and is searching for football talents among Qatari children, starting at the age of 12.
Since winning the right to host the 2022 World Cup in 2010, Qatar has spent more than $250 billion on development projects related to soccer, which is significantly more than what China spent to host the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, which amounted to $42 billion, and what Russia spent. To host the 2014 Winter Olympics, it was $55 billion.
The truth is that Qatar spent only $10 billion to set up eight stadiums that will host the championship matches, while the rest of the money was spent to implement a huge plan to rebuild the country. It rebuilt the center of the capital, built about 100 new hotels, expanded the port and airport, rebuilt the road network, and built three New metro and city lines, accommodating more than a quarter of a million people.
Wooldridge says that there is a hostile feeling in the West against Qatar's exceptional project to host the World Cup, more than hostility to Russian President Vladimir Putin's hosting of the previous tournament in 2018. The list of Western accusations against Qatar includes saying that Doha uses the power of football to enhance its international influence.
Globalisation
The globalization of football moves according to the basic market forces, as the teams that can attract the best football talents achieve the largest financial returns, and the teams that achieve the largest financial returns attract the best talents, and this led to the emergence of giant football leagues, which occupies a position very far from the rest of the leagues of the game. In the world, and this led to an increase in the movement of players’ trade between countries, three quarters of the players in the English Premier League, which is the largest league in the world in terms of popularity, are foreigners, and more than half of the technical managers of the teams in this league are foreigners, and half of the clubs themselves are owned by foreigners. .
The irony is that full adherence to market forces occurs in old Europe, known for its reluctance to fully adhere to the values of trade, especially when these values are applied to things that have popular sanctity such as football, which was originally a working class game, and is still imbued with the values of collectivism embodied in the Liverpool FC logo. "You can never walk alone."
While the United States was late in adopting football, perhaps because of its ambition to make American football a global popular game, Europe became a global center for investment in football, an open market for playing and training talents from around the world, and it established stadiums, training programs and support teams.
The result was that five European countries won the World Cup during the last six tournaments from 1998 to 2018, and they made up three-quarters of the participants in the World Cup finals.
Wooldridge says in his analysis that it must be realized that Qatar's spending of about a quarter of a trillion dollars will achieve great progress for the country, and that the Qataris liberalized many of their policies to host the tournament.
Finally, the game of football itself has its charm.
Wooldridge says that as soon as the matches begin, billions of people will plunge into World Cup fever and forget all worries.
The idea of football is not only a beautiful game, but also a game whose outcome cannot be predicted.
And a small country like Croatia can compete with the big guys, and unknown players can turn into stars.
Wooldridge expects Qatar to win the admiration of many for the progress it has achieved.
• This is the first time that the FIFA World Cup has become the focus of a development project.
• 5 European countries won the World Cup during the last 6 tournaments from 1998 to 2018, and they constituted three quarters of the participants in the World Cup finals.
• Europe has become a global center for investment in football, an open market for playing and training talents from all over the world, and has established stadiums, training programs and support teams.
• Qatar has spent more than $250 billion on development projects related to football, which is much more than what China spent to host the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, which amounted to $42 billion, and what Russia spent to host the Winter Olympics in 2014, which was $55 billion.
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