How is it that Qatar every got its bid to host the FIFA World Cup?

I led out a yelp while reading the papers on my way to work. Qatar, a country that is in the Gulf Region, has no history of good football playing, no infrastructure or stadiums to support football making, hosting the World Cup? Belinguered.

Obviously, a political move. The country would never play in the World Cup if not for the bid.

Looking at the history of countries hosting the World Cup, you can note a trend. It's either in countries which are good in football but not developed (Brazil, Argentina, etc) or countries which are not that good in football but are developed (USA, Switzerland, etc). Or countries which are both good in football or developed (Germany, England, etc). Now we see a trend of moving towards developing/emerging economies (Russia and Qatar).

I was in Qatar 2 years ago, part of my school's business mission programme. Qatar is nice and small - like Singapore. But not as developed. Definitely. It only has a few streets of skyscrapers, concentrated in the city. Better than Perth, but the infrastructure in Qatar falls behind nations with long standing history of development.

Qatar only started opening up in the 1990s when the current Emir took power. Now, it's one of the country's in the world with the highest GDP per capita. Amazing you can say. But yet the reasons for its rise is due to its country's size and small population. Like Singapore. But done in a much shorter time, as Qatar is pushed to become more competitive as the countries surrounding it, in particular UAE (with Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Bahrain too) developing at a amazing rate that was thought unimaginable. The world's demand for Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) also propelled Qatar to a living standard that was unimginable for the country in the past.

A significant percentage of the ability for Qatar to deliver a good FIFA World Cup hinges on the political stability of the nation. Much of the development is stirred by the current monarch. With the Emir's second wife being very capable in helping him adds an edge to Qatar's development.

Building 9 air-conditioned stadiums by 2022? Not a problem. Adhering to the carbon rules of reducing greenhouse emission with the building of these infrastructure? Not easy. Only if the benefit of adhering to the greenhouse emission rules outweigh the costs in having to build the stadiums would Qatar build functional and carbon-rule-abiding infrastructure.

The political planes,especially in the Middle East region (Saudi, Israel, Iran, Iraq, etc) would definitely affect the development and progress of the Qatar's FIFA World Cup buildings. It may be like China, during the Olympics 2008, where the event served as a political platform for leaders of nations to show China what they thought of the country - Stephen Spielberg and other big stars boycotting the Olympics because of their stand towards how China handles Tibet. But so far, there has not been bad reviews of Qatar. Qatar is a country that's mish-meshed - it's citizens, many expats and foreign workers, it's relationship with Israel, Iran and Saudi all handled relatively well. Hopefully a few years before 2022, Qatar would still be handling its foreign relations as well as it is now, or even better to avoid being bashed up.

Qatar hosting the FIFA World Cup reminds me of Singapore's bid for the inargural Youth Olympics. Small countries, but having the capability to build good instrastructure in a short span of time. The different here is that Qatar has 12 years to acheive what Singapore did in 2.

Not to mention that building stadiums with air conditioning is a must - the blazing sun during summer in Qatar would cause casualties of heat stroke and whatever nots.

I don't know why am I commenting on this. I'm not a football fan. But I think the reasons behind the FIFA committee voting for Qatar to host a World Cup and the fact that I've been and seen Doha, Qatar stirred me to think deeper into the news.

Disclaimer: All thoughts above of the news reflect the views of the writer, and may not reflect the views of the general media and others.