A Look at Qatar's Bid for the 2022 World Cup, and its Potential Impact

The potential for nation-building is one of the strong attractors of Qatar's bid for the 2022 World Cup, according to this piece from the Huffington Post. THe piece looks at the country's bid and some of the proposed stadia it seeks to build for the event. One interesting note is that Qatar's bid, in contrast to far-reaching bids of nations like the U.S., makes plans for all stadia to be within about an hour's drive of one another.

They have demonstrated their ability to host large events with the success of the Asian Games held in Doha in 2006. With no shortage of money to devote to construction, the key focus of their promotional bid video is their five proposed new stadia. Each is designed by Albert Speer & Partner, a firm with a history of working at more intrepid scales in the Middle East than at home in Germany.

For a region not shy of symbolism, it might be no surprise that a familiar list of metaphors weighs the proposal down: the dhow fishing boat (Al Shamal Stadium); the seashell (Al Khor Stadium); the national flag (Al Gharafa Stadium); and the oasis (Al Wakrah Stadium), which might also make up for the sole missing metaphor, the pearl, in the form of a spherical glass dome.

Qatar's Bid for World Cup 2022: To Build a Nation or a Region?
Huffington Post
August 2, 2010