With six months until Senegal take on the Netherlands at the Al Thumama Stadium in the opening game, uncertainty hangs over the World Cup in Qatar. It extends beyond fears over human rights to practical concerns: how many fans will attend the tournament? And what kind of experience will they have there?
The first question is the most pressing and the answer not definitive. Signs do seem to be pointing in a clear direction, however, and a carnival of global football fans in the Gulf looks unlikely. At the time of writing, Fifa has sold 800,000 match tickets to fans. This, from a capacity of 3.1m seats, is just over a quarter of the total. In Russia four years ago, 2.5m tickets were sold to fans from a capacity of slightly more than 3m. There is some way to go if organisers hope to match, or even get close to, that total.
