It’s a great time to be a football lover. It might not feel exactly so if your country is not one of the 32 taking part in the 22nd edition of the Fifa World Cup in Doha, Qatar. But being a fan means managing to love the game without having your dog in the fight. 

The Super Eagles, Nigeria’s national team, won’t be at Qatar — the second time they’ve missed the World Cup in eight years. But since the team crashed out to Ghana in February, fans have managed to reconcile with their misery, especially with upcoming elections that essentially foist a choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. 

One month of jousting over which striker should have played in what position or who should have been benched is more useful for fans than listening to politicians promising heaven on Earth without the remotest idea of how they plan to make it happen.

With national pride at stake for some, big money and a career in the balance for a few, a chance to make a political mark for others, as well as some with nothing but the ephemeral joy of the moment to lose, Doha is the world’s most valuable — and, at a price of $220-billion, perhaps the most expensive — one-month distraction. 

For Africans, either at home or in the diaspora, the trend at times like these is to gravitate their passion and support to the countries representing the continent. Senegal, Ghana, Morocco, Tunisia and Cameroon carry Africa’s flag, with favourites Egypt and Nigeria failing to qualify.

Not for the faint of heart

In the history of the competition, only three African countries have made it to the quarterfinals stage: Cameroon (Italia 1990), Senegal (Korea/Japan 2002) and Ghana (South Africa 2010). Only South Africa has been able to muster the resources to host the World Cup. 

No surprises here, though. Hosting the tournament has never been for the fainthearted. The 29-day tournament is costing the Kingdom of Qatar about 15 times the amount of Nigeria’s proposed 2023 budget.

Only deep-pocket economies such as Qatar and others like it can fund the huge infrastructural developments and building of eight stadiums. One of them, the 60,000-capacity Al Bayt Stadium, is modelled on a traditional Arabian tent and has a retractable roof.

With the third-highest human development index in the Arab world and the third-highest gas reserves in the world, this tiny country of fewer than three million people is proving that size doesn’t count when it comes to achieving great things.

And to think that size was one the reasons former Fifa president Sepp Blatter felt Qatar shouldn’t qualify as a World Cup host. 

But even if physical size is an issue, fiscal ability is the name of the game. And the young Arab sitting over this treasure trove has got more than enough cash to splash, host and entertain the rest of the world, represented by 32 national teams, many times over.

Paying the piper

Qatari king Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who was born in 1980, built a reputation of attracting high-profile global sporting events to the Arabian Peninsula state even before he ascended the throne in 2013 as part of his strategy to raise Qatar’s international profile. 

He chaired the 2006 organising committee of the Asian Games. 

Due partly to his contributions, Qatar hosted the Asian Handball Championships in 2004, the Asian Basketball Championships in 2005 and the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) World Cycling Championships in 2016. A bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics failed when Doha lost out to Tokyo, Japan.

Coming after the World Cup are the 2024 FINA Aquatic Championships in Doha and the Asian Games in 2030, also in Doha. 

The sheikhs are not only interested in developing a vibrant sports economy, their investments are spreading into the major football leagues of Europe. Qatar Sports Investments’ Nasser Al-Khelaifi owns Paris Saint Germain (PSG), a leading French club side and one of the richest clubs in football with a net worth of $3.2-billion, according to Forbes’s ‘Business of Soccer’ valuations list. 

They reportedly own substantial shares in Portuguese and Belgian club sides as well. They also have substantial investments in what is arguably the world’s deadliest club side, Manchester City, and the Premier League’s latest sensation, Newcastle.

Qatar 2022 is the first time the senior World Cup will be held in the Middle East. The Qatari kingdom had to face up to giant neighbours Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and Bahrain imposing an economic blockade that cost the tiny Gulf nation $43-billion in losses, according to Al-Jazeera.

In June 2017, the four states cut all diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism and destabilising the region — allegations Doha denied.

Qatar ramped up local production and established diplomatic relations with Iran to not only overcome the challenges of the siege, but manage declining oil revenues.

In January 2021, the Saudi Foreign Ministry announced that Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE had resumed ties with Doha during the 41st Gulf Cooperation Council summit, a reconciliation mediated by Kuwait.

Qatar was the right choice

Blatter has said Qatar 2022 is a “mistake”. Qatar was graded as having “high operational risk” and was criticised for being part of Fifa’s corruption scandals. Blatter’s “confessions” indicate that there was pressure from the French government under Nicolas Sarkozy and the connivance of former Uefa president Michel Platini to award hosting rights to Qatar. 

Given the world’s travails over the past few years, the choice of Qatar was probably right. Most rich Arab Gulf nations have been significantly insulated from the global economic shocks and ravages of Covid-19. 

The global economic recession and the Covid-19 pandemic have left even the financial powerhouses of Europe gasping for air, with the Russian-Ukraine war delivering a power punch to the world’s cereals and grains powerhouse. 

Rising food and energy costs, which have led to domestic unrest in many countries, would have made the high costs of hosting the World Cup a very difficult task for the United States, which, according to the former Fifa boss, should have been the host of the 2022 tournament after Russia hosted the 2018 edition. 

Football pundits and insiders have always alleged insider manipulations and boardroom politics in the running of the international football federation, and it appears Blatter is bent on confirming it.  

These considerations may well be part of the reasons that Africa, with 54 member states in Fifa, gets only five World Cup qualification slots. Europe, which is smaller than Asia, Africa, North and South America, has 13 slots for Qatar 2022. 

Blatter may be talking about hosting rights and not participation in the World Cup, but the goose and gander deserve a fair shot at one of the world’s most popular tournaments.

It doesn’t make sense that Europe, with 55 members in Fifa, gets 13 slots — more than double that of Africa, which has only one less Fifa member.

About 200,000 fans have travelled to match venues in Qatar, and an estimated five billion fans will be watching around the world, including fans in Russia and Ukraine separated by a totally needless war. 

Football is a tribal game. Though money and politics have often competed to spoil and corrupt it, just as they have sometimes proved indispensable in improving it, when all is said and done, the kindred spirit of the true fans prevails. 

And that is the promise of Qatar. DM