“Most people who attended the World Cup in Qatar flew there. That would have been the simple way to do it. We — Laurie Whitwell and Nick Miller, plus videographer and football culture expert Martino Simcik — decided not to do that. We went via the scenic route. We travelled from London to Doha via 17 countries, taking at least eight different forms of transport — from planes to e-scooters — taking 17 days to travel just over 5,600 miles. …”
The Athletic (Video)

1 – Qatar fans enjoy the pre match atmosphere prior to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Group A match between Qatar and Ecuador at Al Bayt Stadium on November 20, 2022 in Al Khor, Qatar.
“1 Fake Qatar fans. It is one of the strangest minor stories of the strangest of World Cups. Shortly before the opening game, Qatar versus Ecuador, a group of men in uniform Qatari team-coloured T-shirts emerged en masse into a vacant area behind the goal and started making noise, doing choreographed dances and leaping about with apparently genuine excitement, something they kept up through the game irrespective of what was happening on the pitch. … 4 Fake Venice shopping centre. The motorised gondolas at the Villaggio Mall, a Qatari classic. This is a place that loves a bit of urban mimesis. Doha and its surrounds also have a fake Place Vendôme, a fake Champs-Élysées, even a fake Hackney in the guise of Stadium 974, with its billionaire-hipster aesthetic, the pretence of being built out of glossily reclaimed shipping containers. …”
Guardian
4 – Fake Venice shopping centre.

“The World Cup in Qatar is set to end without migrant workers receiving access to an adequate remedy fund. This tournament has been controversial for several reasons, including Qatar’s criminalisation of homosexuality and male guardianship system, as well as alleged abuses of migrant workers. These workers make up around 90 per cent of Qatar’s population, and have embarked on an unprecedented construction programme in the country since 2010. There have been thousands of unexplained migrant worker deaths during that time. They have also faced risks such as non-payment of wages, illegal recruitment, and heat-related safety issues. …”
The Athletic

“… Wait a minute — just how much of this World Cup has happened during stoppage time? From the opening match, it was clear that this competition’s official time was going to be unusually kept; Ecuador’s 2-0 cakewalk against their Qatari hosts went on 10 minutes and 18 seconds longer than expected. FIFA referees committee chairman Pierluigi Collina soon confirmed that throughout this World Cup, officials would be adding much more time than usual, at least in part to punish teams that deploy time-wasting tactics. …”
Five Thirty Eight

“For a brief few moments it looked like the World Cup was being rigged in real time, amplifying an explosive conspiracy theory seen by millions around the world. In the days running up to the tournament opener between hosts Qatar and Ecuador on November 20, a viral tweet suggested the South Americans had been bribed to deliver a 1-0 defeat. The claim mutated from the Twitter feed of someone named Amjad Taha to other social media sites and news outlets around the world. …”
The Athletic (Video)
Guardian – As Qatar’s World Cup ends it is time for truth: Fifa chose death and suffering
Guardian – Qatar 2022: this World Cup has taken place in a crime scene
World Corrupt (Audio)

“When Qatar won the bid to host the World Cup in 2010, the choice shocked and surprised soccer fans around the world. Concerns about lack of infrastructure, the country’s conservatism, summer heat waves and allegations that the country had bribed its way to the bid dominated the international media. FIFA, the global governing body for soccer, responded to the heat issue by moving the tournament to the winter, and the Qatari government threw up stadiums, hotels, roads and even new cities in record time — only to raise new concerns about its treatment of migrant workers. …”
GRID

“No World Cup tickets are available for purchase on FIFA’s official ticket portal despite swathes of empty seats being clearly visible at many matches during the tournament, The Athletic can reveal. While many tickets were sold long in advance of the first match, FIFA now is in its “last-minute sales phase” where additional tickets can be bought at short notice. All knockout matches are listed as sold out. There is a link to an official resale platform but few appeared to be available. …”
The Athletic

“When FIFA president Gianni Infantino is not empathising with minority groups, lecturing on postcolonial theory and sitting next to heads of state, he comes up with ideas to improve/ruin football (delete as applicable). Biennial World Cups, a global Nations League, 32-team Club World Cups… the ideas come spitting out of his head like tracer bullets. …”
The Athletic

“A Qatari whistleblower who was jailed after raising concerns about the mistreatment of migrant workers at World Cup stadium sites was tortured on the eve of the tournament, his family has claimed. The human rights organisation FairSquare also released a letter from the family of Abdullah Ibhais, a former media manager in Qatar’s Supreme Committee, who accused Fifa of ‘callous indifference’ for ignoring his case. …”
Guardian

“It is not clear from Ivanka Trump’s Instagram record of her family’s three-day visit to the World Cup in Qatar if she or her husband, Jared Kushner, heard any of the chants and songs in support of the Palestinians voiced by Arab fans at multiple venues during the first round of matches. But the outpouring of support — which was also expressed on huge ‘Free Palestine’ banners displayed in the stands, and by fans who intruded on Israeli television interviews to wave Palestinian flags and berate Israeli reporters — made it clear how badly Kushner had miscalculated, as his father-in-law Donald Trump’s Middle East peace envoy, when he convinced a handful of Arab autocrats to sign economic cooperation deals with Israel that did not respect the rights of Palestinians. …”
The Intercept_ (Video)

“Look who we are, we are the dreamers. We make it happen. There is something seductively inane about the soundtrack to Qatar 2022, present in the slogans plastered across its surfaces, the sonic assault of the World Cup PA, the playlist of official anthems, centralised messages, approved corporate machine-feelings. …”
Guardian

“… Franklin Foer: Really, it’s the fact that the stadiums in which the games are going to be played were built in the worst circumstances for labor. Human-rights organizations have estimated that thousands of people perished in order to make this World Cup happen. [The Qatari government disputes those numbers.] I think a lot of times with sports or things that we love, we’re vaguely aware that, for example, people working at a resort will get treated badly and paid very little, or that a piece of meat was raised unethically. But here, there’s this incredibly direct sense everyone should have that these games are being played in arenas that were responsible for a huge number of deaths. It’s a hard thing to get past. …”
The Atlantic (Nov. 17, 2022)

“Yesterday marked the midway point of the Qatar World Cup — 32 matches played, 32 remaining. Today marked the point when Qatar’s participation ended. They were already mathematically eliminated, but their 2-0 loss to the Netherlands at the Al Bayt Stadium — essentially in the middle of nowhere, 50km north of Doha — completed a hat-trick of defeats. … There has been an intriguing flow of supporters throughout the games. Qatar’s matches have started with many empty seats, which generally fill up throughout the first half. There were a couple of sections of the stands tonight that were initially entirely empty, before suddenly becoming full 20 minutes in. …”

“Need we say more? Thirty-two teams have converged in the tiny Middle-Eastern nation of Qatar to fight for their national pride, and so far, it is shaping up to be the spectacle that keeps football lovers faithful. But there is no sport without politics, and Qatar’s hosting of the tournament has unleashed a sea of criticism over its dodgy labor practices and poor human rights track record. Should we side with FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, in his accusation that the West is being hypocritical? Or are reactionary elites simply weaponizing woke-ish arguments to deflect warranted scrutiny? …”
Africa Is a Country (Audio)

“Today I feel … largely invisible. Today I feel like a boggle-eyed despot-groupie. Today I feel like essence of human avarice distilled through a series of filters, poured into a dark suit and presented on stage looking like a discredited small-town mayor with a secret. Today I feel like I really should, for the sake of world football, start to get a grip on this chaotic Fifa World Cup. It is hard to know whether Gianni Infantino feels any of these things right now. It is nine days since Infantino delivered his opening press conference speech, his Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock moment, his I Have a Really Horrendous And Deluded Dream. …”
Guardian

A political cartoon depicting slave labour in the construction of the stadiums
“From corruption to human rights abuses, go deeper into 12 years of reporting on the issues around the Qatar World Cup”
Guardian
W – 2022 FIFA World Cup controversies

“Qatar is a player. In the Middle East and across the world, the petrostate of fewer than 3 million people plays an outsized role in geopolitics, media, and art. Its cultural diplomacy has established the country’s influence — and now it’s doing the same with sport. The country’s absurd wealth is on display this month: It spent about $300 billion on stadiums and groundwork to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which kicked off Sunday. That money totaled more than all previous World Cups and Olympics combined. …”
Vox

Adrien Rabiot of France scores their team’s first goal during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Group D match between France and Australia at Al Janoub Stadium on November 22, 2022 in Al Wakrah, Qatar.
“In 1986, the International Olympic Committee voted to split the Winter and Summer Olympics so they would alternate every two years instead of occurring together every four years. The new tradition began in 1994 with the Lillehammer Winter Olympics, site of the infamous showdown between figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. The IOC initiated the split schedule in part to bring greater attention to the winter events, and while this move did bring them out from the shadow of the more popular summer games, it also locked the Winter Olympics into permanent competition with an even bigger quadrennial athletic spectacle: the World Cup. …”
The Bulwark