All that oil money only fuels more doubts over Qatar

Posted Wednesday, January 19, 2011 by theguardian.com

Qatar's bid won over Fifa but it would take billions to convince the public that a desert World Cup is a good thing

All that oil money only fuels more doubts over Qatar
The Fifa president Sepp Blatter, right, with the Qatari emir Sheikh Khalifa Bin Hamad Bin Abdullah al-Thani.

Money can't buy everything. This isn't an original proposition although proof of it sometimes comes in the most unexpected ways. Take the newly-minted revelation, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, that Qatar set aside £26.5m for PR and marketing last year as it sought to persuade Fifa that the 2022 World Cup should be staged in a desert nation the size of Glasgow.

With oil heading towards $100-a-barrel and 15 billion barrels still underground waiting to be welled, that sum of money probably sounds like armchair shrapnel to a member of the Qatari ruling elite. But it's not. It is, for instance, four times the amount spent by United States on its competing bid. Australia spent a reported £25m chasing the 2022 dream – again, on its entire bid. Meanwhile, back in the cheap seats, England's two-year long, headless-chicken themed effort clocked in at £15m.

The corollary is obvious, or at least it is to the cynics and the losers who have spent the weeks since the 2022 decision complaining the competition was not judged entirely on merit. Naivety is always welcome in the corridors of power but, really – it was a Fifa bidding process. What else did they expect?

Likewise, confirmation of Qatar's outlandish spending has also been seized upon as proof that the World Cup was "bought" when in fact all it proves is Qatar got terrible value for its £26.5m.

Marketing and PR campaigns are supposed to persuade and convince a broad audience. They are supposed to build momentum, to turn "why?" into "why not?". On the eve of Fifa's decision there were murmurings Qatar might be coming up on the rails. It is the measure how little impact its money had made that even then no one outside the black-hearted bubble of Fifa politics took the idea of a desert World Cup seriously.

It is this dissonance between broader expectation and the eventual outcome of the Zurich vote that has fuelled the worldwide cynicism now engulfing Fifa's showcase event, and has Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini scuttling around trying to restore its credibility. How about a January World Cup? How about a "Gulf-wide" World Cup?

Qatar will have none of it, dismissing both ideas in recent days, and why should they? Under the terms and conditions of Fifa's bidding rules (such that they are) they won. Case closed.

As for the money they spent trying, and failing, to persuade a broader audience (as opposed to a narrow Fifa electorate), at least it is being put to use now as an army of marketing and PR men attempts to explain away revelations contained in Qatar's own bid documents.

Is it really true that when the Emirate invested heavily in academies sited in the home nations of Fifa executive committee members via its Football Dream initiative – six of the 15 countries singled out for help by Qatar (40%) were countries of Fifa execs, when executive committee members account for fewer than 12% of Fifa's 208 member associations?

"Inevitably some are in countries which are the home of committee members and many are not," a Qatar spokesman told the WSJ. "At no time were they established to secure votes."

And what of the minutes showing how Qatari officials discussed circumventing a Fifa directive telling bid countries they should not stage lobbying events during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa? "An expression of strategic thought," said a spokesman. "It did not happen."

As for an offer to finance the relocation of the Asian Football Confederation to Qatar, lock, stock and, in the words of the documents, "a large-sized BMW" for the AFC president: "We understand the AFC discussed the possibility of a move of its headquarters to Doha but this was rejected."

It is also suggested the Qatari-owned television network Al Jazeera could bail out the financially-stricken Argentinian Football Association by buying television rights. "It is true that our client carried out detailed due diligence on the Asociación del Fútbol Argentino, however, our client did not adopt or proceed with any steps to intervene in or assist with the financial position of it," lawyers for the Qatar bid told the Telegraph.

And so on, and on, and on until we return inevitably to the formulation that seems destined to echo down the years. "The Qatar bid played within the rules laid down by Fifa at all times," a spokesman for the bid said.

Maybe so but until someone explains how the 2022 World Cup ended up in the desert when the case against it was, and continues to be, so lacking in credibility and public support, then all in the oil money in Qatar won't make the cynicism and the suspicion disappear.