In just over three weeks, the 2022 World Cup will kick off in Qatar — a country about the size of the state of Connecticut with zero noted soccer history. The entire buildup to this World Cup has been an embarrassment for FIFA, which shamelessly accepted bribes in the bidding process and refused to move the tournament over the subsequent eight years even amid well-documented human rights abuses.
I can go all day about the reasons that fans should avoid traveling to Qatar for this World Cup (hotel shortage, lack of infrastructure, draconian laws). But for the fans who are indeed making the trip to Qatar, they better be prepared to give the Qatari government access to their phones because the mandatory COVID app is essentially state-sponsored spyware.
