It Depends How You Look At It

I saw an interview with the chief executive of the Qatar 2022 World Cup. It was interesting to see his position and opinion on things.

As you know, Qatar is going to host the big football event, the 2022 World Cup in exactly three years. There has been concerns regarding whether Qatar is ready to host such an event. These concerns came after the Athletics World Championship which was a disaster from all aspects. The stadium has been empty pretty much all the time, athletes life was but in danger when they had to endure the heat and humidity during half marathon and marathon and human rights were violated when exploiting migrant workers.

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The CEO says the image painted about Qatar is not a real one and these accusations are not funded. Qatar has been misrepresented. This is concerning news as if he's satisfied with how things are, nothing is going to change.

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You can read the report here and please do as it's interesting and very sad in the same time. The CEO does not agree with the report, ha has a different opinion. Why I am not surprised?

I'm not a football fan, not watching or following matches but the report said there were two events this year in Qatar that were disastrous.

Anyway, the CEO was asked what's going to happen with LGBT people who are going to visit Qatar during the 2022 World Cup. The answer was they are not forbidden but Qatar is a conservative country, everyone should respect that and public affection should be avoided.

2019 FIFA Club World Cup will be held in Qatar between between 11 and 21 December 2019. Liverpool will be there, representing Europe and just came across an article that warns people planning to attend the event.

women should cover their knees, public intimacy could lead to arrest and hotels may demand MARRIAGE CERTIFICATES from couples. source.

Qatar is governed by Islamic-based legal codes and those codes are very different from ours. They have special rules regarding alcohol consumption as well and many other rules that are very different from what we are used to.

As I said in the title, it depends how you look at it. They probably think what's happened and what's happening is normal, we don't, we have a very different opinion and expectations.

This interview reminded me of another interview I saw a couple of years ago with the Saudi Prince who was asked about his plans regarding the future of his "empire", specifically how he's going to handle foreigners, how he's going to attract foreign money. What can I say, he's a smart man with ambitious plans. His plans were looking good, one of his plans was to attract western money through sports. At this point he was asked how is the country going to deal with cultural differences, like women playing golf in mini skirts and so on. He was confident there can be a solution but avoided giving any details regarding this matter.

I see these countries are eager to hold these prestigious events, they are doing everything to get the right to organize them but are they ready to deal with what comes with them?