Al-Thawadi: We confronted a fierce campaign to take the World Cup away from us.. This is the truth about spending $200 billion on the World Cup

Al-Thawadi: We confronted a fierce campaign to take the World Cup away from us.. This is the truth about spending $200 billion on the World Cup
November 15, 2022, 12:35 a.m
Follow us:
alsharq
A+
A-
Doha – Al Sharq website

Read also
A new study by the College of Health Sciences at Qatar University and the College of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania on the role of tea consumption in preventing cognitive decline in adults
Football Association: Football is a global event that unites peoples.. We welcome all teams participating in the World Cup
Minister of Labor: We will not accept hate speech and racism against the Qatari people and their national team
His Excellency Mr. Hassan Al-Thawadi, Secretary-General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, revealed that he confronted a fierce campaign aimed at wresting the hosting of the World Cup from Qatar, stressing the readiness to secure the World Cup with Qatari expertise that participated in securing international tournaments, including the European Champions League, and noting that the $ 200 billion figure that It is said that it was spent on all infrastructure works in the State of Qatar, not just the World Cup.

volunteers

Al-Thawadi said – in an interview with the program “The Story of the Rest” on Al-Jazeera channel, this evening, Monday – that the World Cup 2022 is a message for us, and this message is the one with which we began our journey to prepare for hosting, and we said from the beginning that it is an Arab championship and aims to bring the peoples of the world closer.

Commenting on the short documentary shown by the program “The Story Remains” about the experience of volunteers in the Qatar World Cup 2022, he explained that the secret behind selecting nearly 50% of the volunteers from the Arab world was to present a message that the Arab world welcomes the world on the land of the State of Qatar. .

He added: The turnout of volunteers proved to us that despite our differences, there is something that unites us and football can bring people together, indicating that the reason for the success of any tournament is the volunteers because they communicate with the public and their passion, interest and belief in what they promise is an important element in the success of the tournaments.

Reasons for the success of the Qatari file

He attributed the main elements in the success of hosting the tournament to:

1- Arabic support

Al-Thawadi said: When we started the file, it was an Arab, Middle Eastern and Qatari file, and we sought to have Arab support for the file, and we were speaking with the voice of the Arab world and we believed that it was time for the Arab world to be present in these events.

2- The work team

Al-Thawadi confirmed that the team working on the Qatar file was a strong point for the file, and we had the goal of winning and devising new ideas to present the file. Only, as for the football community, the idea of ​​hosting an Arab country for the largest sporting event was pure fantasy and impossible, and we finished in 2010 and all members of the team are internationally known under the leadership of His Excellency Sheikh Mohammed.

3- Talking to others with their mentalities

Al-Thawadi said that the Qatar file team spoke with the world with their mentality in English and French and in any language.

4- Technical subject

Al-Thawadi said that we were able to turn the difficulties into positives, as the small size of the country gives us the advantage of the proximity of the distances between the stadiums and the lack of fatigue between the teams and the fatigue of the players, and we turned all the negatives into positives.

5- Geographical location

Al Thaoudi confirmed that the geographical location has been exploited as the largest number of the world’s population sees the matches at suitable times for them.

6- Hosting the tournament in the winter

He added: We were keen to host the tournament in the summer period and we already had the cooling technology, and we have been developing this system in terms of energy use and cooling since the first day, and we did not seek – at any moment – for the tournament to be in the winter, but we were ready to hold it in the summer period. .

turning point

The Secretary-General indicated that from the beginning until February 2010, no one took us seriously. For them, an Arab country that offered to host the tournament was a fantasy, and indicated that his speech to the African Union was a turning point when South Africa was preparing for the World Cup in 2010 and was able to In his speech, he simulated the criticism they were exposed to as the African continent hosting the World Cup, and at that time the international football community began to realize the seriousness of the Qatari team and its ability to compete with a real project that it aspires to win.

fierce attack

Regarding the attacks on the World Cup, Al-Thawadi explained that from the first day the fierce attack on Qatar began, and they asked: How can an Arab country win over America and Australia? is money.

He added, “Some were surprised because we won the hosting, we entered an honorable, peer-to-peer competition, and we deservedly snatched the hosting of the tournament, and that was not unprecedented.”

Campaign to grab the World Cup

Al-Thawadi confirmed that there was a campaign to extract the World Cup from us and we dealt with it rigorously.

He also made it clear that the owners of the campaigns that invoke Qatar have political and economic motives on their lands. Some western cities said that they would not set up screens to display the Nabariyat, but they had internal political goals and some economic matters.

He continued: But in general, the campaigns are due to the fact that Qatar is an Arab country that was able to compete with them peer to peer and snatch hosting the championship, relying on the stereotyped image of the Arab world, which is one of the reasons we fought for hosting the World Cup, which is to change the stereotyped idea about the Arabs.

Changing the stereotype of Arabs

And about changing the stereotype, Al-Thawadi said: If we look at history, the 2006 World Cup changed the stereotype of those who left Germany, and 2018 changed the stereotype about Russia. Arabic .

He gave, for example, that the volunteers from Ecuador and Brazil all they know about the Arab world is the stereotype, but when they meet the Egyptian and the Tunisian and visit Qatar, they will turn into ambassadors for Qatar and the Arab world.

$200 billion

In answer to a question about spending 200 billion dollars – according to the British newspaper (Sun) – on the tournament, Al-Thawadi explained that the description of the figure is not accurate. As these expenses are related to all infrastructure projects and their development for the State of Qatar and were not built for the World Cup, as the committee was keen not to burden the country with requirements for infrastructure that it does not need, but rather to make the most of the tournament, and that Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup prompted the completion of Qatar Vision 2030 projects and development plans The country and the infrastructure in general in record time, and the principle of legacy in building stadiums was present, as residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the stadiums were contacted to find out their needs to provide them through the construction of stadiums and their facilities.

He stressed that the World Cup is a key factor in advancing development and completing projects in record times, but these projects keep pace with Qatar Vision 2030, indicating that the State of Qatar has ambitions to host the Olympic Games and the facilities will be used.

In his response to a question about the presence of the Palestinian masses and enabling them to participate in the stadiums via an airline to Qatar, and while raising slogans with political dimensions might be embarrassing, the Secretary-General stressed that the responsibility for everything that occurs on the stadium campus lies entirely with FIFA, according to laws and legislation. However, he stressed that the presence of the Palestinian public on the Qatari lands to participate in this global event with its Arab character is a reason for joy in this Arab demonstration, which Qatar has been keen on, by the need for the participation of the Palestinian public with the rest of the Arab world.

security preparations

Regarding the security preparations, Al-Thawadi said: In 2013 a security committee was formed and we started preparing for security plans since 2013 and we were present in all the world championships and the European championships.

He said that the use of international expertise and forces is a natural thing, just as they seek help from Qatari expertise, and the cyber plan is one of the best systems in the world, and the provision of security cadres sufficient to secure the tournament and external security forces sought to participate in the tournament to gain security expertise.

Committee team sentiments

Regarding the feelings of the committee team a few days ago about the World Cup, the Secretary-General said: Between comfort and anxiety.

He stressed that our focus is on the legacy of humans more than the legacy of stone, the most important of which is changing the stereotypical idea that exists in the West about the Arabs by not being civilized by hosting this tournament, and even if this image is not in the media, it will be in people, and I always see those who lived with the Arab world as the strongest defenders of it.