After football world cup success, Qatar wants to host 2036 Summer Olympics

(Image: AP)

Buoyed by the success of hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Qatar is now planning to bid for the 2036 Summer Olympics.

The bidding for Summer Olympics will be held in 2025. But the Qatari leadership has already begun to prepare the ground to win the award of hosting the prestigious event by presenting itself as a pillar of world sports.

As a country, Qatar hardly had a football history. Since winning the bid to host the FIFA World Cup in 2010, it had to face a burst of criticism that ranged from bribery and abuse of migrant workers to human rights violations and criminalisation of LGBTQ+ community.

Many public figures had called for a boycott of the football games being hosted in the country and singer Rod Stewart claimed he turned down a $1 million offer to perform in Qatar.

Qataris found the western reproval difficult to accept and called out the "double standards". They argued that while the Europeans do not have any qualms about buying gas from Qatar, they found the country so abhorrent that they cannot watch soccer there.

Sheikh Tamim bin Hammad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, called the criticism, “an unprecedented campaign that no host country has faced.”

'Best World Cup ever'

But despite the criticism and protests in the run-up and during the games, the FIFA World Cup in Qatar turned out to be an extraordinary success, leading several commentators to describe it as the “best World Cup ever” — especially after they witnessed one of the most thrilling finals in the history of the game between Argentina and France.

Qatar is now trying to build its image as an attractive sporting venue in the Gulf. Apart from hosting Formula One motor racing next year, it will also hold Asian Cup football in 2023.

In 2024, it will stage the world swimming championship and the opening race of the world endurance championship.

It has already been awarded to host the 2025 world table tennis championships and its Bein Sports channel has begun to enjoy a growing viewership and rights portfolio to add to the country’s sports muscle.

Though Qatar is one of the tiniest countries in the Gulf it always had the propensity to punch above its weight.

It has a population of 2.6 million, of which Qataris account for only 300,000 and an area of 11,580 sq km but as the third largest supplier of gas, it is the fourth richest country in the world with a per capita income of more than $62,000.

Qatar’s strategic location in the Persian Gulf with major petroleum deposits and the rising demand for natural gas in the 21st century has provided the country with the funds to place itself in a position of greater prominence in West Asian politics.

Qatar’s capital Doha is also the headquarters of the Al Jazeera media network, which has received global acclaim for its impressive news coverage.

The growing image of Qatar as a moderate Islamic kingdom has led it to match the swagger of its other larger Gulf neighbours, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates and the desire to be a player, in not only resolving disputes in West Asia but also beyond the region.

Since its independence in 1971, Qatar had moved closer to the United States and allowed itself to be used as a base for the American troops during the military campaign against Iraq in the 1990s and 2003. It is today one of the major markets for American weapons.

Strained ties with neighbours

But Qatar’s interventionist approach in the region has often angered its larger neighbours. In 2017 its close links with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, both considered hostile forces by the Saudis and Emiratis, led to the imposition of an economic blockade on Qatar. It also brought the country on the verge of expulsion from the Gulf Cooperation Council, a grouping of the Gulf Arab countries that came into being in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.

But instead of isolating Qatar, the blockade helped the country to rejuvenate its economy and attract more foreign investment to develop the country’s infrastructure. It also brought Turkey and Iran—detractors of Saudi Arabia—to rush to Qatar’s rescue by providing it with the necessary military muscle and a steady supply of fruits and vegetables and other essential commodities.

In addition, the energy trade of Qatar instead of showing a decline, shot up significantly contributing to an economic boom in the country. Much of the investment and the economic boom were linked to the infrastructure network that was being built before the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

But the failure to marginalise it finally led Riyadh to lift the economic blockade in January 2021 and the Saudi Crown Prince Mohamad Bin Sultan visited Doha to restore normal bilateral relations.

Strong US ties

In recent years Qatar managed to win the confidence of the US leadership further when it used Doha as the venue for negotiations between the Americans and the Taliban to finally end the war in Afghanistan and allow the American troops to leave the country.

The Qataris managed to earn brownie points also with the American and European public when it became the main centre for visa and other facilities for the nationals of the western countries as they were being evacuated from Afghanistan.

Qatar has managed to consolidate its position further as Saudi Arabia’s relations with the US have strained on the Ukraine issue. President Joe Biden invited the Qatari emir to the White House as his first foreign guest this year and declared Qatar a major non-NATO ally.

So far, the script has worked perfectly for Qatar. But its bid to host the Summer Olympics may be disappointing.

It had bid for the 2016, 2020, and 2032 Olympics without success.

The Olympics has never been held in the Middle East and Qatar is likely to face stiff competition from Saudi Arabia and Turkey who also want to host the Games and had previously bid five times.

With the summer temperatures reaching up to 50 degrees Celsius, it is highly unlikely for the Games to be going either to Saudi Arabia or Qatar.

But this is unlikely to stop the two Gulf rivals from reaching for gold.