I wanted to write about Qatar and its World Football Championship much before, but was busy chasing impeding shadows. And in the meantime a lot has happened in the desert country where not only the weather, but also the spirits are hot. There is an enormous portion of hatred against the Qatarese because of the debacle with the workers who built the stadium, hotels and a whole new metro network in 12 years time. Also there is a great amount of hospitality and Qatar tries to promote its cultural richesses between all that happens. Plus at the noment they are playing against a cheerfully drumming Senegal. They just scored their very first goal.
Boring it is not in any case, but the atmosphere is cold in spite of the nice warm temperatures. The numbers of the workers who died during the building of the stadiums and other buildings were in 12 years time and there were about 350,000 people at work. They were also not living 6 people in a room, but 4. The Qatarese government did what it could to improve the conditions, but they failed. Yet their conditions remain inhuman and even if they got paid twice as much as in their own countries, it was a sad situation. Engineers get their money in gold, but workers are treated almost like slaves. Modernising a whole country in 12 years time, even if it’s a small piece of land, is just impossible. The FIFA should have seen this disaster coming and the fact that they on top of everything refused to pay a compensation for the workers, completed the fiasco. Despite everything the eight stadiums are a miracle of architecture as you can see in this thread on Twitter:
Football and politics?
The One Love Captain armbands throw even more oil on the fire. Homosexuality is banned in Qatar and the Qatarese think politics and football don’t go together. On one hand they are right, but what about the Iranian players who were silent during the playing of their national hymn to make a statement for the women in their country? They also made a political gesture, but everyone respected it. Rightly so of course, but the situation in Qatar is stressed and angry instead of relaxed and positive. Yet the FIFA and all participating countries agreed about holding the World Championship in Qatar. Then they have to show respect to the country and its inhabitants. Either you refuse to play on forehand or you go and shut your mouth. That’s how I see it. They have had 12 years time to think about it.
Brazil protests against Lula
Brazilian supporters in Qatar have a heavier problem than homosexuality: the presidential elections on the 30th of October were rigged and the whole country has been protesting about the new never elected President Lula. Here they are in Qatar with the yellow t-shirts that stand for Brazil, but also for Jair Bolsonaro.
https://twitter.com/floresdepapel6/status/1595918313913475073?s=19
Mexico comes in!
Supporters from Mexico came in the day before yesterday and they did it in full Mexican style! See the video underneath.
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Japan steals the show against Germany
While the Germans were boiling with anger about the One Love bands for LGBT rights in a foreign country, the Japanese just did what they came for: to play football. And they won the match against the European giant. Not only that though! After the match they cleaned up their part of the stadium, harvesting sympathy and respect from all over the world. Very smart move.
In the meantime the match between Senegal and Qatar, for both countries their second one, has ended with 1-3 for Qatar. Not nice for the receiving country to lose all the matches, but the Senegalese supporters make a great festival drumming and singing in beautiful yellow-green-red outfits.
If you have a positive outlook, there is more than enough to see and to experience in Qatar. This restaurant here underneath is owned by a woman and serves wonderful and tasty topic food. With this I will end this article. We have chosen to play the greatest sport in Qatar, so let’s enjoy fullheartedly!
