Qatar 2022: Arabs Honored or Skeptical?

I honestly can’t remember if I’ve posted about this yet, so if this is a repeat bear with me.

This was announced a while ago of course, but as far as I can remember this is the first time I’ve gotten around to writing about it. This past November FIFA announced that Qatar had been selected as the host of the 2022 World Cup. TV news has played up the excitement in Qatar and the success of their underdog bid, but attitudes from some of the Yemeni teachers at the College have been cynical.

While my friends and I interpreted the pick as representing FIFA’s commitment to bringing the World Cup to the developing world, one of our teacher’s was skeptical that FIFA would ever select Qatar as a host when nations like the United States and Australia were bidding as well. “There must have been some corruption or pay-offs,” he said. “This is just my opinion, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t have given it to the U.S. or Australia over Qatar. There must have been corruption involved to convince them to give it to such a small country.”

I had expected excitement and elation, and instead I got skepticism. Why would the Western-centered international community bestow such an honor on the Arab world? Surely there were shady forces at work, ran the reaction. It's hard not to think that this reaction is symptomatic of the larger sense of distrust and pessimism of authority institutions that seems to permeate society, the same distrust and pessimism that leads many to believe that their government fabricates al-Qaeda attacks to serve its own interests.