Doha: The diplomatic crisis sweeping the Gulf could invigorate a campaign by critics of Qatar to strip Doha of the 2022 World Cup, experts said on Monday.
One of the areas that could feel the impact is Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup, football’s biggest tournament, in five years’ time.
Since being controversially chosen by FIFA in 2010 as the host, Qatar has maintained that it is a politically secure nation despite its location in a volatile region.
Doha has also emphasised that the tournament serves the entire Gulf, and not just the tiny gas-rich emirate.
But current events may challenge those notions, Ulrichsen said.
“One of its pitches was that Qatar is one of the most stable countries in the Middle East,” he told AFP.
With that potentially called into question — and the fact that there are other countries which could host the event at little notice — organisers may be getting anxious, Ulrichsen said.
“Qatar will know that there are alternatives, so they will be looking over their shoulder,” he said.
Suggestions have been made previously that the United States, one of the countries that lost the race for the 2022 competition to Qatar, could take over hosting duties if necessary.
The crisis that erupted on Monday came only a few weeks after US President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia to cement ties with Riyadh.
In a brief statement sent to AFP, football’s governing body FIFA said it was “in regular contact” with Qatar 2022 organisers and had “no further comments for the time being”.
Simon Chadwick, professor of sports enterprise at Britain’s Salford University, said the diplomatic crisis “raises an important issue of risk assessment and contingency planning” for the World Cup.
“The closer we get to 2022, the more Qatar becomes exposed. In terms of reputation and embarrassment, this is a big issue for Qatar,” he said.
“As a country, Qatar likes to hedge, in regional terms it hedges and I think it’s being forced by countries and organisations to stop that. I think there’s an awful lot to be resolved in five years.”
Already the first sporting victim of the crisis has been claimed.
Saudi football club Al-Ahli said just hours after the cut in diplomatic ties that it would end its financial association with Qatar Airways, taking to Twitter to announce “the termination of the sponsorship contract between the club and Qatar Airways”.
A three-year sponsorship deal, worth an estimated $16 million a season (14 million euros) with the Doha-based carrier was originally signed in October 2014 and renewed in May this year.
As part of the deal, Al-Ahli played FC Barcelona, previously sponsored by the airline, in a high-profile friendly in December last year.
Another potential early victim could be this year’s Gulf Cup of Nations, scheduled to take place in December in Doha.
Qatar had stepped in as host when Kuwait was stopped from hosting following its ban from FIFA. (AFP)
