Where the hell are the sheikhs?
It's almost impossible to find one in Doha.
No one wants to be a sheik here: not the two administrative employees, not the businessman, not even the policeman.
Not even the high government functionary wants to be a sheikh.
Christopher Ehrhardt
Correspondent for the Arab countries based in Beirut.
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It's hard to believe, you could read it everywhere.
Didn't the "desert sheikhs" buy the World Cup?
Isn't football the "plaything of the sheikhs"?
Didn't we experience the "Sheik Show" at the opening?
Perhaps the coverage of the "Desert World Cup" just suffered a bit of heat stroke.
In any case, the sheikh as we know him from Karl May novels or from carnival events does not seem to be much more real than a mirage.
Even if a lot of people wear very similar clothes here, but they don't feel exotic or disguised at all.
At least they don't mind being lumped together as sheikhs.
You just wonder.
Because, contrary to what one might assume, being a sheikh is not at all dishonorable.
On the contrary, it is an honorary title that is only reserved for particularly honored personalities.
Members of the royal family, for example, or important religious scholars.
So the emir is actually a sheikh, you hardly ever meet him.
Or the Qatari foreign minister, who recently complained about racist clichés in the FAZ.
But he probably has other worries at the moment.
The state of the national team, for example.
But even if this is eliminated without a murmur, it will not be out of the question any time soon.
So don't despair, dear Qatar!
Maybe things will be a little better in four years.
Then the Sombrero World Cup will rise among the cowboys.