Qatar World Cup, The First Ever in the Arab World
Qatar World Cup, The First Ever in the Arab World Haider Abdulhak | EP Sports - Al Jazeera News Channel
As we readied ourselves to cover the opening match of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, we came across a team from Qatar actively working backstage to get first-hand experience of the occasion. They were working day and night on Qatar’s bid to host the global event in 2022. Throughout the tournament, the Al Jazeera crew regularly met with Qatar bid team members. They had high hopes that Qatar would be awarded the right to host the first ever football mondial in the Arab world. During our coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, all our sports news bulletins were broadcasted outdoors, not from within closed studio sets. I even recall we presented a full-fledged sports bulletin from the Wildlife Sanctuary, or The Lion Whisperer. It was a one-of-a-kind moment in my career. Another bulletin was aired from the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, in our effort to give a taste of the pain and suffering South Africans had to live in the past. We shed light on how sports, namely the Mondial, is an instrumental tool for people’s prosperity. Curtains went down on the tournament, and we returned to our headquarters in Doha to meet new challenges on the international sports arena. We started drafting a coverage plan for the approaching
FIFA meeting where the two countries to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup Finals would be chosen. It was scheduled on December 2, 2010 The countries bidding to host the prestigious tournament have each finalised their respective dossiers, including Russia, the US, UK, South Korea, Australia, Japan and Qatar. Amid this fierce competition, Qatar submitted an ambitious bid file to host the finals for the first time in the Middle East region. As usual, Al Jazeera lived up to the occasion, creating multiple outdoor broadcasting studios, in Doha’s cultural village ‘Katara’ and beyond. We started our coverage early on the day, with a host of guests, including the then editor-in-chief of Al Wanan, Ahmed Al Sulaiti; and the Secretary General of the Qatar Olympic Committee, Shaikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. As the ceremony at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich was drawing to a close, the atmosphere was filled with apprehension, but even the most optimistic among us would not have thought that Qatar’s bid could win. Voting ended and it was time to declare the result. After Russia was awarded the 2018 World Cup, all eyes turned to the 2022 result.
Thousands had gathered in Katara and the historic area of Souq Waqif. Minutes seemed to last forever. Al Jazeera’s then Managing Director, Waddah Khanfer, called and said: “If Qatar is awarded the right to host the 2022 World Cup, our coverage will go uninterrupted.” As the moment of truth arrived, there was a deafening silence – in Zurich and all across Qatar. Then the FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, announced the successful bidder: Qatar. The silence turned into a tsunami of joy. People took to the streets and cars honked their horns all along the Doha Corniche. Qatar had officially been declared the host of the 2022 World Cup.
The dream had come true, and Qatar outperformed other competitors and won the right to host the 2022 Mondial. Al Jazeera’s coverage went on for hours capturing the overwhelming sense of jubilation across Qatar and other Arab countries. The lesson is not to fear the obstacles, to work with a sound plan and unshaken faith and you will achieve your goal. That is simply what Qatar did in order to win the highest of honours: hosting the football mondial.
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