gadis:

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needsmorekittens:

footysphere:

Qatar 2022 World Cup Bid

5 new stadiums of stunning design.

God, I will be so mad if the World Cup goes to Qatar. Playing a summer tournament in the middle of the desert? How ridiculous and unsustainable. But it would be bright and shiny and I’m sure that’s what FIFA will do.

aside from the environmental issues - huge events like the world cup are horrible for the environment anyway, but i don’t think putting it in a country with extremely limited water resources that its citizen piss away like they live by the amazon / a country that gives less of a shit than the us about its carbon emissions sounds like a good plan, especially that far into the future - it’s really really really dumb to have a worldwide event in a country with repressive religious law. fans aren’t gonna wear “modest clothing.” fans aren’t gonna solely drink at the few designated places non-muslims can drink in the country. not to mention their completely shit record on human trafficking / modern-day slavery that those pretty stadiums may be built by.

WHAT IS WITH THE COMMENTS? Sorry, I have to disagree with a lot of points.

Firstly, and most obviously, Qatar actually have the financial wherewithal to afford such a huge financial undertaking as to host the World Cup, unlike many other countries bidding. FIFA like this because they can smell money the way vampires smell blood (I am assuming). Football clubs love going to the Middle East because it means money. Cha-ching. Outside of sports and football, rich foreigners and companies (from the West and the East) love to have branches and employees to work and live in Qatar because it means money. Of course, there are foreign overseas workers that do not earn as much money, who are drivers and maids from, say the Philippines and Indonesia and have no access to this wealth of monetary resources, but they also make a living in Qatar to send money back home. Sure there are issues whether or not the benefits of the World Cup will trickle down to the average (read: those not related to construction big wigs or those companies and industries directly involved in the World Cup), but we all know South Africa’s benefits are largely reputational. FIFA will earn all the money from all international broadcast rights while South Africa pays out of the nose for infrastructure—money that had to be re-channeled from important social infrastructure, whereas the benefits are more ephemeral.

Secondly, Qatar was the only bid that focused on the environment. If you read further in their bid website, “We intend to deploy low-carbon cooling technologies for the stadiums and training grounds, which can then be used to help develop international football in other countries with hot climates.” It says it right there, and yes, it is expensive but it’s better than the non-effort a lot of other perfectly economically capable bids have not made. It also is relying, I am assuming based on my reading of privatised green technology, as opposed to possibly less effective government funded technology:

“The Qatar 2022 Bid fits perfectly with the nation´s existing strategy of moving into a low-carbon future. Qatar is committed to developing new green technologies that will shape the world of tomorrow…Qatar has also invested heavily in international clean-tech funds, and also envisages establishing a low-carbon research centre in Doha. Simultaneously, the country is encouraging collaboration between the oil industry and local universities to find new solutions for an energy efficient future. As a result, the push for renewable energies will enable Qatar to offer a new type of World Cup™ that uses only low-carbon energy sources to cool and power stadiums, training facilities and fan zones.”

Of course, I have my reservations on how exactly other nations that are tropical or have hot climates but don’t have as much money can actually adopt this using what appears to be very sophisticated (read: expensive technology). I do think the website is a bit brief about the specific technology and science involved to be used to do this.

Thirdly, in terms of Human Trafficking, Qatar is one of the most proactive countries that is tackling the issue on the high government level, of human trafficking. I agree with more knowledgable sources that Qatar is a destination country for trafficking. But so are many other nations including the United States and Spain. Human trafficking is not just one country’s responsibility. Focusing directly on football, should we say that any European country with a strong footballing league and foreigners coming should not be hosting? They are also heavily highly and blatantly complicit in child and human trafficking directly related to football.

Lastly, as a muslim woman, I take a lot of offense at the ultimate generalisation that a Middle Eastern country, any Middle Eastern country, is automatically one that comes with oppressive or repressive religious laws. Because I have looked long and hard to find anything about alcohol and “modest dress” that is mentioned, and have found no comment about it in the ACTUAL website, I am assuming this is an assumption of viewers of this video.

It is unsettling, not to mention highly discriminatory to hear that because of my religious beliefs and customs, fans who come see the World Cup are incapable of being respectful and abiding by local laws (whatever it may be), that they wouldn’t want to stay in “designated drinking areas”. As for “modest dress”, what is constitutes modest dress? Will it really hamper your enjoyment of the game if you are not wearing a bikini in a stadium? Do you really wear nothing to a football match anyway? I doubt that.  Do you really think that because alcohol and football go so hand in hand (well, it is true commercially) that would mean that we will never see a World Cup happen in a muslim country. I don’t know how much you know about “muslim countries” but there are people who live in muslim countries and aren’t muslim and many muslims do drink alcohol in muslim countries and buy and sell them in a formal or informal economy. (What about a country with a majority muslim population, like Indonesia?).

It seems, not wrong, per se, but I am very close to saying that, that a westerner would say this. I have my reservations and it seems that this is coming from a very different perspective with very little research.

Sorry, I would like to end with the fact that despite what your news media or entertainment or propoganda or educational system has said, it is possible we muslims are tolerant too, you know. I missed the boat where it said that “tolerance” is solely the reserve of non-muslims or non-western people. It’s not just the western nations or non-muslim nations that can be tolerant.

Just learned some things which is fascinating.

The issue with human trafficking is all over the world from Japan to Indonesia to Russia to Israel to The Democratic Republic of Congo to The Bahamas to United States and to the very state I live in. It can easily get complicated and too many connections that lead the existence of human trafficking and the hypocrisy of local/world leaders and society itself.

I’m surprised this isn’t a video on U.A.E but maybe it’s the financial problems they’re trying to recover from that has pushed them away from making a bid. Most people know U.A.E is a mini Europe.

I think a lot of people would be dumbfounded if they learned about the life of a Saudi or Iranian when it comes to “letting go and having crazy fun”/the nightlife which happens a lot more than one would assume.