If Qatar can host the World Cup why not the Olympics for the UAE?
Posted on 03 December 2010 with 3 comments from readers
There was immense celebration and some disbelief at the decision that Qatar is to host the 2022 World Cup. No matter that Qatar has never participated in the event, or that the July temperature and humidity is off the scale. Money seemed to have won over all other considerations.
Where will the estimated 400,000 football fans stay in a country of 1.5 million, the smallest ever to host the event? How will football actually be played in 40 to 50 degree heat?
Air-conditioning
Qatar apparently came up with a convincing answer with air-conditioned stadiums that will be given away to poorer countries after the event, and promises to build hotels, roads and a railway by 2022.
The $25 billion initial budget for roads, a metro and railway is music to the ears of global contractors. Stadiums can be built at immense expense. But it is still hardly going to be comfortable or easy for spectators to visit Doha in July 2022. Not everybody can afford a five-star hotel.
On ArabianMoney’s last visit we stayed in the beautiful new Ritz-Carlton that still has aircraft landing overhead because the new airport is way behind its delivery schedule. Those who attended the Asian Games in Doha hardly had a good experience.
However, Qatar has set a precedent. Why does not the UAE make a bid for the Olympics? Dubai has been mulling a bid on its own. But how more fitting it would be to make a joint bid with Abu Dhabi as a symbol of national unity and what the joint resources of the nation can achieve?
UAE infrastructure
The UAE actually already has a far better developed infrastructure than Qatar. Both Dubai and Abu Dhabi have some world-class sports infrastructure. Dubai is legendary for its hotels that include the two tallest in the world.
Perhaps the awarding of sports events has become more about making a political statement about peace and development. That would certainly be one way to read the World Cup going to Qatar rather than the United States.
Qatar is something of a beacon for modernization in the Middle East. The UAE is surely the other, and a successful Olympics bid would shine the light of the world on this success story.
Here is the video of the new stunning new stadiums Qatar will build:
3 Comments posted by readers:
Rather than making it in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, including other emirates, would make more sense economically for the UAE; Sharjah for example shold be pushed to have a share in contibuting to the country’s economy or any other emirate.
Dubai should have learnt it’s lesson from the delusional days of “If you build it, they’ll come.” The ridiculous decision to stage the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is hardly surprising coming from the dummies at FIFA who gave us the meaningless FIFA World Club Championship. The great irony of the clueless decisions made last week is that the two largest investors in the world’s best domestic league, in the last ten years, were a Russian and an Arab! Hopefully, the great economic collapse that is getting closer & closer will bring decision makers to their senses and terminate these ridiculous development schemes. Another irony is the thought that if 2 wealthy countries like Russia & Qatar had any future demand for the massive infrastructure development needed to stage the world’s biggest sporting event, then why have they not built it already? In the end, things normally end how they ought to and this ought to be an economic disaster for both whether they can afford it or not!
The case you are providing against the infrastructure development is similar to the case against South Africa, since the money they used to host the event could have been put elsewhere to have long-term benifits. But the difference here is that both Qatar and Russia have some kind of hype surrounding them; Russia being part of the BRIC (Personally I am not convinced with the reason for the hype for this group, they certainly deserve credit for the gowth they achieved, but still they should be approaced cautiosly), as to Qatar its high GDP growth expectations is enough for this hype. Though your cynicism isn’t wrong and we should ask Qatar if it expects that everything it will build for the world cup will certainly be used afterwards, and if so then how and why do they believe this?