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When the 2022 World Cup was dedicated to Qatar eleven years ago, a group of Dutch people started the “FIFA Think Again” campaign. Did not help. How is the country now on the eve of the event? “Are you with the CIA?”
Several steel giants in Doha, hundreds of meters high, have been decorated with portraits of World Cup stars for a few weeks now. Neymar on one, Messi on the next and Iran’s captain a bit further away: stars shine over the city. Not that you could have missed in Qatar that the world’s biggest event is right around the corner, because flags and logos are everywhere, it’s the talk of the day – for years.
Because that World Cup was dedicated to Qatar in 2011. FIFA voted and to everyone’s surprise, Australia, the United States, Korea and Japan did not win, but small Qatar. We weren’t journalists yet, but we were already active football fans, so we started the “FIFA Think Again” campaign, to use digital signatures to make the federation think more wisely. This led to a great deal of support and media attention, especially from Australia and the United States – and not from the Netherlands, because that only angered a year and a half. It did not lead to a review.
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