World Cup Diary | Day One

Blood on the Sand: Qatar 2022, World Cup Diary is a daily podcast tracking the news, both on and off the pitch.

Day One: The Opening Ceremony and Qatar v Ecuador

From the moment Qatar was announced as the hosts of the 2022 World Cup, there has been an uneasy feeling about it. A country smaller than Northern Ireland, with next to no footballing heritage, hosting the biggest tournament of the globe's biggest game seems ludicrous. Would Northern Ireland be named as hosts? I cannot even see why they would ever even bid. And yet Northern Ireland is bigger, has a strong footballing heritage, and were far more able at the time of the bidding, in terms of facilities, weather, human rights and laws, to be able to run this tournament than Qatar.

The story of the games itself is far too big for one podcast, it might be far too big for a series. So, initially, these episodes, the World Cup Diaries, will feature my thoughts on these games, day-by-day. As much as mental notes for me, as they are a way to keep up for you.

The build-up to the opening ceremony was as lined with controversies, geopolitical face-saving and last-minute u-turns, as the rest of the preparations would have led you to expect. A Danish TV channel was confronted by what appeared to be local law enforcement – though the presenter acted with dignity in the face of oppression, they dismissed his press pass and threatened to “smash the camera.”

Three days before the tournament and the FIFA executives arrived to find their luxury World cup hotel was not finished. A 'last minute scramble' was taking place, a few more days of hard graft for the overworked and underpaid migrant workers.

There was more on that day as Jack Warner, disgraced former FIFA vice-president, lost an appeal against extradition. Still many more steps before we see him behind bars. But a reminder of the current state of the former members of the FIFA executive committee which is responsible for the location of this World Cup.

Two days before the tournament, beer sales at grounds were cancelled. Budweiser, who had paid a reported £60 million for the exclusive rights to sell beer at the tournament tweeted, “Well, this is awkward...” before deleting that tweet. But it is awkward, isn't it? I mean, literally everything about this tournament is awkward. Surely this was some kind of breach-of-contract? The decision was also announced jointly by FIFA and Qatar. Which seems odd, when the rationale for the decision must of, obviously to me, have come from Qatar. Perhaps they had a meeting and both wanted to speak first, started giggling and said, “no you go, no you, go, OK how about we count to three and we both speak?” and to their amazement the FIFA representative and the Qatari counterpart counted down from three – two days before the tournament – and both said: “Let's ban alcohol sales in the grounds”.

There is one place in grounds you can enjoy a pint – hospitality – prices start at £19,000 a ticket.

There was more that day, the Daily Mail had an exclusive from their chief sports writer Matt Hughes. There would be no water fountains in the official FIFA fan park. Conjured images of the documentary Woodstock 99 came flooding back to me, combined with the Fyre Festival looking facilities, it does make you wonder how bad this could get. One clear saving grace was the decision made five years after being awarded the bid, to hold the tournament in winter. A decision that has no-doubt saved some lives.

And still before a firework had exploded or a ball had been kicked, there were rumours of corruption. A “widely known” disinformation Twitter account of a British-Bahrini social media influencer – Amjad Taha, had a viral tweet suggesting the Ecuadorian players had been bribed $7.5million to lose the opening match of the World Cup 1-0 with a goal in the second half.

This also shows the power of not having competent and knowledgable mis and disinformation personnel within the structure of a news outlet. This was a tweet that had zero factual information, being widely reported by many news outlets. The fact that this can happen can be used against Western outlets who are genuinely investigating and uncovering and presenting evidence-based reports.

If fake news can spread so easily, then genuine truthful reports can be accused and dismissed.

And finally, one day before the tournament, an “integrity alert” was given to FIFA about an “unusually high number of penalties being awarded to Qatar in their pre-World Cup friendlies”, many of which were held behind closed doors. Another claim that could not be verified.

But the fact that these claims were so readily believed, shows exactly what the general feeling is among the football community with regards to this tournament.

And just when you thought that all the drama would now take place on the pitch. Enter stage left, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, whose bizarre press conference 19^th November took sports headlines once more from the back pages to the front. He told the world he feels Arab, African, gay, a migrant worker and disabled, while the media are racist hypocrites. And he said he felt like them because he was bullied for having red-hair in school.

On a rip-roaring descent into logical fallacies, this bizarre apologist did more than erroneously empathising with working practice akin to modern slavery where people were literally worked to death on the basis of, “I got bullied at school for having red hair”. Infantino's bizarre rant accused criticism from European news outlets of hypocrisy because of Europe's past, implying that no one in Europe can criticise working conditions of Nepalese migrants working in Qatar because of “three thousand years of history”.

There was so much nonsense in there that it would be a disservice of me to repeat it and I feel sorry for anybody in the room having to listen to and report it. But I feel more sorry, much more sorry, for the families of migrant workers whose relatives didn't just “go to the football and never come back” but paid to go build the grounds and never came back.

If FIFA and Qatar were truly contrite, truly sorry, and understood the impact of their decisions, then they would not be trying to wriggle out of a workers compensation fund for the families of the dead, and for the workers who sweat and bled and got sick building these incongruous monolithic statues of stadiums. Stadiums that now look like symbols of corruption, of slavery, of money. Idols of egos. Grave stones of the nameless.

And so it was, that the world held a collective breath in anticipation.

The opening ceremony itself was, to me, rather placid and devoid of the passion normally associated with these things. Sitting next to me, my fiance couldn't get around the lack of female dancers. And the lack of females in the crowd, especially in the incredibly odd and forced “ultras” type section in the Qatar end.

A rectangular block of the stadium, with men who were all wearing the same shirt, with a choreographer and conductor at the front, directing the chants, claps and dance movements. It remains to be seen whether they were paid employees, but the question is there. They did not look like an average group of ultras.

Giant puppets of the mascots of previous World Cups danced on the field. And most bizarre of all, and this is where the opening ceremony entered into it's most spookiest of scenes – out of the darkness, the Qatar mascot rose gigantic above all the others. I think it's meant to be a stingray, it is the traditional white thobe and black headband, but with a white face made of the thobe. It looks like a ghost, or maybe the Marshmallow man from Ghostbusters.

And it hangs like a spectre over the whole parade. Was this a dream? When the elephant in the room – the dead migrant workers, whose blood has built these stands – manifests into the ghost of the workers hanging above the tournaments opening ceremony, it cemented the feeling more-so, of the shaky, uncharted grounds we are standing on.

The players themselves looked nervous. The Qatari players looked amateurish. Their warm-ups filled with little inaccuracies. This may sound like nitpicking, but to me it's an indication of how little prepared they were. Having watched footballers at the highest level all my life, their movements in warm-ups are fine-tuned. Each extension of the leg – the same as the last – almost robotic. You don't find this in amateur teams.

And as soon as the whistle blew for kick-off you knew that the Qataris were in trouble. It took seven minutes for VAR to rule out an Ecuadorian goal and the drama heightened.

It doesn't take arguably the most corrupt World Cup in history – even before a ball has been kicked – for VAR to make poor decisions. But it is a mechanism where by corruption could seep in. I don't think it was corrupt though. I think VAR is just utterly broken.

It was 2-0 at half time but it could have been five.

Thousands of supposedly football-mad Qataris streamed out of the stands, out of the stadium and didn't return for the second half. Leaving the scene even more surreal. This haunted stadium, the building itself surrounded by nothing but desert, almost completely empty. Pathetic.

Ecuador were in cruise control, no need to get anyone injured or even try too hard. It ended 2-0 with the match recording the joint lowest number of shots of any World Cup game since records began.

Turn the lights off on day one. A lot has been said about, “letting the football talk”, “focusing on the football”. In the end there wasn't much to focus on. $200 billion spent, the Qatari players kept from their clubs for six months. No heroes were made, no shock result, an extraordinary footballing anti-climax.

A final punctuation mark on the first day of the tournament, no better said by an Ecuador fan in the crowd rubbing his index finger and thumb together and taunting the crowd, the stadium, the country, the world with the word, “money” and a huge smile on his face. While several rows behind him an angry Qatari man in a thobe told him to: “shut the f*** up” angrily. The Ecuadorian made his apologies and sat down, looking alarmed at how much vitriol his taunting had produced.

Did these football fanatical Qataris not know the basics of banter? The truth is – it was a farcical loss on the pitch and in the stands for Qatar. They humiliated themselves. They started the day aiming to prove themselves a footballing nation, they ended it the first host country to lose their opening match. Maybe this was all about money after all?

ABOUT

The Qatar World Cup 2022 is potentially the most controversial sporting event since the 1936 Berlin Olympics. A story that is so bizarre and complex, it has sent sport from the back pages, to the front pages, to the long-reads in the middle of newspapers.

Blood on the Sand: Qatar 2022 will track the progress of the World Cup through the World Cup Diary series. A short podcast episode, one per day, covering news from the tournament both on and off the pitch. Followed by a more detailed in-depth look at the history of Qatar, the tournament and how those two collided.

CREDITS

Blood on the Sand is written, produced and performed by Adonis Storr (@theadelites on Twitter).

Cover Art was created with Daan (@DaanGraphics on Twitter and Instagram).

Music by WombatNoisesAudio (https://soundcloud.com/user-734462061) including the tracks The Legend of Narmer and Jewel Of Nekhen. Music was promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com and is used in conjunction with Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US.