The 2022 World Cup was supposed to herald the arrival of Qatar, already an economic powerhouse, into the international arena as a legitimate cultural and political player. But so far, the opposite has happened. In an epic backfiring, all it seems to have achieved is focusing attention on the country’s abusive treatment of migrant workers and repression of LGBTQ+ people and women. Everything in Sunday’s opening ceremony – which the BBC remarkably chose not to broadcast, focusing instead on all that was wrong with Qatar 2022 – felt coloured by the buildup, precipitating an overall sense of enforced joyfulness. Even the generic welcoming words from the Qatari sovereign felt pared-back and pointed.
On the face of it, the frenzy around this tournament has been the rare triumph of a human rights issue “cutting through” to the public. There’s just something about how the bid came about that put people off: it looked like money bending the world to its will, with the event being held in winter – in the middle of the European football season – and the use of cheap, exploited labour to build the facilities. Recent headlines including a World Cup ambassador describing homosexuality as a “damage in the mind” and the sight of a Danish journalist being forced off air, while broadcasting in a public space, seemed to confirm all this. High-profile footballers such as the former Bayern Munich and Germany player Philipp Lahm have said they will not be attending, while the Lionesses’ captain, Leah Williamson, has said she hasn’t “any interest” in such a compromised contest. Major European cities including Barcelona and Paris are not broadcasting matches in public places, and David Beckham, an ambassador for the event, came under intense pressure to withdraw from the proceedings.
