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With Morgan Freeman and blow-up dolls (not that way), a few camels and lots of glitz, the 22nd FIFA World Cup has begun. According to the prevailing estimate, it is worth about $220 billion to its host, Qatar. Someone zevzek would joke that this amount does not include bribes.
Undoubtedly, this World Cup is the most expensive PR in human history. In Doha, they discovered what universal religion is and over the past 10 years have built seven temples of football – from “Al Bait”, where the opening of the sports forum was held, to “Lucial”, where the match took place final of the tournament will be played. These are bejeweled stadiums that stand like oases in the desert. In short, in places where football has a tradition, people pay to go to stadiums, they don’t get paid to do so, but that’s another matter.
Like Bulgarian football though, during the first match between Qatar and Ecuador, it was more interesting in the stands than on the pitch. The official lodges of “Al Bait” gathered in one place, among other guests, the presidents of Egypt, Turkey and Algeria, as well as the king of Jordan and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. The Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, gave a short speech in which he said, “We have worked diligently and tirelessly to bring about one of the most successful tournaments. We have invested so much to do good for the whole race Human “. In the next few days we will enjoy a football festival. Different people will come together to experience the emotions. Let’s forget our differences and celebrate this holiday together.”
Well, alcohol also brings people together and is a must-have assortment for partying, but let’s just say the Doha authorities haven’t come to that conclusion yet. And maybe they are right. Who knows how else the saber dance would have developed since the opening of the World.
And yet: what happened in the stands of “Al Bait”?
When Mohammed bin Salman wore the Qatar scarf
Not so busy, at the height of the crisis in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Saudi Arabia considered – in addition to cutting ties with its smaller neighbor and host of today’s World Cup – whether to physically dig a ditch between himself and Qatar, even cutting off Doha’s land arteries. Qatar’s transformation into a beachhead for Turkish military and political influence, as well as cooperation between Doha and Tehran, has made the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council irritable with their smaller neighbour. Additionally, Qatar has actively participated in supporting conglomerates around the Muslim Brotherhood in Arab unrest since 2011, directed against authoritarian monarchical structures such as that of the Wahhabi kingdom.
However, Qatar, with Turkish and Iranian support, has proved to be very resistant to diplomatic and economic pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. And when Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the presidential elections two years ago, the resulting complications in relations with the United States led Riyadh to change its behavior, seeking more security within its immediate perimeter. And the latter implied a rapprochement of relations with Qatar, which would have led to an increase in the diplomatic distance between Doha and Tehran. Additionally, Saudi Arabia felt vulnerable to the Houthis in southern Yemen, who were cooperating with Iran. Riyadh has not wanted to put new tools at the disposal of the ayatollahs’ regime.
The physical chasm between Saudi Arabia and Qatar was never dug and Riyadh’s stranglehold policy on Doha was suspended. And the Crown Prince and former Prime Minister of the Kingdom, Mohammed Bin Salman, wrapped in a Qatari scarf, appeared at the Al Bait stadium. Interests have no color.
Greet a “killer” with a smile
One of the most persistent situations in the Middle East and North Africa over the last decade has been the antagonism between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The ontological cause of this rupture in Turkish-Egyptian relations was, of course, the coup d’état against former pharaonic president Mohamed Morsi, with whom Erdogan had similar interests in imposing the political Islam preached by the Muslim Brotherhood. But things didn’t stop there. Subsequently, Egypt entered into a coalition in the Eastern Mediterranean with Israel, Greece, Cyprus, with each of which Turkey has tense relations. The partnership between the countries in question was carried out both through the conduct of joint combat exercises and through the energy cooperation assembly, hitting Ankara’s ambition to become a regional hydrocarbon hub.
To Cairo’s dismay, Ankara, in turn, deepened its military and economic ties with Libya and Ethiopia. And this is neurological for Egypt. Cairo does not want to be surrounded by Islamist enclaves (since it already has one in the east, the Gaza Strip, and partly in the south, in Sudan); for this reason the Egyptian authorities are suspicious of the Libyan Islamists in Tripoli and Misrata. Though varying in intensity, tensions continue to simmer between Cairo and Ethiopia as Addis Ababa builds a colossal dam along the Blue Nile, which will cut off Egypt’s access to water.
And although Erdogan has meanwhile promised a thaw in relations with Egypt, this process is progressing much more slowly than Turkey’s improvement in relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
But if until recently the Turkish president did not want to sit at the same table with his Egyptian colleague, also defined as an “assassin” by Erdogan, this did not prevent the two from sharing the official stage at the “Al Bait” stadium. And for the first time to shake hands in front of the cameras. Smiling.
Football will overcome this World Cup
It is an illusion that next month the world will be football. The world will continue to be football after. Football will survive this World Cup and it will be even more football because there will be more atmosphere and spirit in and around stadiums and fewer Korean pop stars on duty.
Because football is eternal. Like politics. And she is the twelfth player on the field in Qatar.
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Assessment 2.6 from 15 voice.
