Almost a decade after Qatar were announced to host the World Cup 2022, the country faces a series of scandals, corruption and bribery accusations, the threats over the abuse of migrant workers.
The list of problems goes on and on as Qatar are looking towards an uphill battle to fight in the final two years before the beginning of the tournament.
The host nation will make its debut at the World Cup in Qatar. They clearly lack the quality to compete at the highest level and are desperate to build a reputable team by throwing money to naturalize foreign players.
It opened a whole range of other issues the local government needs to deal with, but we will rather stick to those connected to football as a game.
The first-ever World Cup in winter
By giving Qatar the opportunity to host a World Cup, FIFA have gone beyond their comfort zone, completely changing the entire structure of their biggest national-team event. People have been discussing the decision ever since it was first announced. The drawbacks of a World Cup in November/December can be easily recognized. Let’s go one by one:
The calendar in most top European leagues will be in complete chaos. The tournament comes right in the midst of the season in competitions such as English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga or French Ligue 1.
It is clear the leagues will be forced to shut down for at least a month and a half and compensate the lost fixtures at some point in the summer. On the other side, FIFA will surely have to pay massive amounts of money to the mentioned leagues to compensate for their sponsorship deals with big television houses.
Without doubts, it will cause massive disruption for the top players and teams all around the globe. Some clubs have even gone as far as threatening to boycott the whole event by forbidding their stars to take part. It will be very interesting to see whether they will take any actions as we are getting closer to the beginning of the event.
The tradition in England and Scotland
We all know football's roots are bound to England and Scotland. These two countries have a huge tradition as their teams always play fixtures over the festive winter period.
All leagues, from the Premier League to Non-League (sixth tier of English football) and beyond, regularly see their fixtures played on the Boxing Day (the first day after the Christmas). Matches are also played on the first day of the New Year.
The clubs and the leagues attract massive sponsorship deals during this specific period. While these deals can be compensated by money, the tradition can’t. Was it all worth for the major tournament to be held in a country that has never previously participated in it?
The fans
Football is played for fans, but they will also likely suffer because FIFA decided to move the highest-level competition to Qatar.
Instead of enjoying the football matches on sunny summer days, the fans around the world are doomed to sit in their local pubs and homes. The only industry that won't suffer is online gambling as the time of the year does not affect people's bets.
As a matter of fact, the situation in this field is even better in some territories, especially the United States. Following Indiana sports betting legalization, you can even throw some bets from there, as well as from a significant number of the US states that made changes to the sports betting laws. This will no doubts affect the popularization of soccer across the Atlantic.