With football focused on the Arabian Gulf this weekend, Australia should take Qatar's rival FIFA World Cup bid seriously.
Over the next few days, the fortunes of both Australia and New Zealand's national football teams will be focused on the Arabian Gulf.
While New Zealand take on Bahrain in the second leg of their FIFA World Cup qualifying play-off, where a win will see the All Whites qualify for the World Cup finals for only the second time, Australia will be in Oman in the penultimate game of their Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup qualifying campaign.
With football in our region inexorably linked with Asia following Australia having joined the Asian Football Confederation in 2006, this week's focus on the Arabian Gulf is portent of the future of the game.
For this weekend will also see an unlikely sporting sight when English football fans gather to support their team when they play against World Cup holders Brazil. The sight will be unlikely because the stadium at which the game will be played will not be London's Wembley or Rio De Janeiro's Maracana but the Khalifa International Stadium in the Qatari capital of Doha.
The game is a 'home' fixture for Brazil, who are able to generate more revenue by playing their non-competitive matches at various locations around the world than they would in South America, and follows their having been the first visitors to the new Wembley in 2007. It marks a first visit to the Gulf state for England, and will expose the Islamic nation to a significant influx of English football fans.
The presence of England fans in a country that while modernising and tolerant by the standards of the region, is still deeply conservative by western standards, will present an interesting contrast of social and sporting cultures. This will be particularly apparent when the Qatari police, known for having a lack of patience for yobbish behavior, meet England fans with their reputation for drinking and fighting.
The way in which the Qatari authorities deal with potentially belligerent English fans will be watched around the world.
For this tiny but very rich country has a lot riding on this match with its eyes on bigger events, including the 2022 FIFA World Cup, where it is a bidding rival to Australia.
Since hosting the 2006 Asian Games, Qatar has focused on successfully winning, executing and hosting numerous major sporting events. It has just hosted the Sony Ericsson WTA Championships and this month is also hosting the FIVB Club World Volleyball Championship. In the coming years it will stage the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Athletics Championships and, in 2011, both the 12th Pan-Arab Games and the Asian Cup.
Even though its bid was assessed equal third on technical merit with Chicago, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) did not short-list Doha as candidate city for the 2016 Olympic Games, the IOC discounting the Doha bid due to the proposed dates of the competition being outside their recommendations.
Disappointed at this rebuff, Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, son of the Emir of Qatar, President of the Qatar Olympic Committee and Chairman of the Qatar 2022 World Cup Bid Committee has since advised that "Qatar is still determined to host the Games." And while assessing why Doha's 2016 Games bid failed the nation is concentrating on the potentially bigger prize of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Qatar, along with Australia, is among 12 nations aiming to host the 21st and 22nd editions of the world's largest sporting event. While Australia is bidding for both dates, Qatar is focussing solely on the 2022 event.
At first glance, it might be easy to discount the Qataris bid against our own, as well as those of the USA and major European football nations such as England, Russia, as well as the joint bids from Spain/Portugal and Netherlands/Belgium, with their football heritage, large populations and income generating potential.
In addition, with a population of just over 1.3 million people, around two-thirds of whom are expatriates, Qatar would be the smallest nation to host a World Cup.
Yet, in an era of massive infrastructure developments in Arabian Gulf nations, Qatar has invested US$2.8 billion in sporting infrastructure over recent years, as part of a strategy to attract sporting events of an ever higher calibre. It is this thinking which is driving investment in sport throughout the Arabian Gulf and which has also seen wealthy individuals invest in sporting properties around the world including the ownership of English Premier League teams such as Manchester City.
Sheikh Mohammed Al-Thani is also promoting his bid as an Arab unity bid, positioning the Qatari bid as an opportunity to bridge sporting, cultural and political divisions between the Arab and western worlds
As for Qatar's extreme summer heat, where average daytime temperatures can exceed 40°C, Qatar will not be seeking alternative dates as with its 2016 Olympics bid and will stick with FIFA's June/July schedule. To counter the heat, Qatari officials are experimenting with innovative cooling technologies for both players and spectators.
As Sheikh Mohammed Al-Thani explains "a stadium with controlled temperature is the answer to the problem (and) we have already set in motion this process."
Qatar 2022 Bid Chief Executive Hassan Abdulla Al Thawadi recently told ESPN Soccernet that "we are researching various cooling methods which are environmentally friendly and very effective in cooling.
"We'll soon be unveiling a number of visionary, state-of-the-art ideas for iconic stadia and infrastructure and we're very excited by the challenge of ensuring that passion for football is the only thing that will make spectators hot."
At the heart of Qatar's sporting infrastructure is the Aspire Zone, with its 50,000-capacity Khalifa International Stadium and the Aspire Dome, the world's largest indoor sports facility.
Located just eight kilometres from Doha's Central Business District, the Aspire Zone offers both local and international visitors access to world-class sports facilities and activities, high-end retail shopping and luxurious green parks.
The Aspire Zone was featured in the November/December 2009 issue of Australasian Leisure Management.
Nigel Benton, Publisher, Australasian Leisure Management. 11th November 2009
http://www.ausleisure.com/
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