We’ve all heard the rumours – that back in 2009/10 Qatar paid for votes among the FIFA ExCo voting delegates and thereby won the World Cup: the greatest sporting event on the planet.

The rumours were never quite proven, despite several investigations and numerous collateral scandals seeing FIFA heads roll, but the whiff of suspicion remains. This latest round of paying for positive social media vibes just confirms it (in the minds of those inclined to be suspicious).

Let me state clearly – I am not suggesting Qatar has done anything wrong financially.

However, I do believe that there are likely to be cultural differences that allow the Qataris to perceive the use of funds as a normal and viable tool in getting the marketing message across. So it goes…

Which leads us to the latest posse of Happy Clappers sucking on the Qatari teat.

Just the fact that the Qataris feel the need to undertake this desperate exercise tells you a lot about how well the marketing message is going:

  • There would be few fans in Western countries who accept, without question, that the Qataris won the World Cup fair and square;
  • The alleged treatment of foreign labour has been problematic with many stories regarding poor conditions and pay;
  • Accounts of over 6000 killed and tens of thousands injured during the building of stadia and other World Cup infrastructure;
  • The fact that it will (probably) be difficult to get a drink in Qatar and rumours that revelling fans are likely to be summarily carted off to drunk tanks on the whim of officials;
  • The official homophobic stance;
  • The potential for revelling fans otherwise to fall foul of Sharia law which is strictly imposed in Qatar; and
  • The outrageous prices for accommodation being reported.

These are not the conditions to encourage the usual World Cup party, with inclusion for all. In fact, there is potential for significant fan discontent – expressed in particular via social media. And it’s social media where the Qataris are taking up the cudgels.

They are (according to Reuters) recruiting a social media army (flights, accommodation and match tickets) to come from various nations en bloc to:

  • Report favourably on the tournament;
  • Like and share/retweet other favourable commentary;
  • Refrain from adverse commentary;
  • Film and report any adverse or negative behaviour from other fans.

It is the last of these bullet points which (if true) most concerns me. It’s one thing to pay for a positive message – that is, after all, the essence of all advertising. But it’s quite another to pay foreigners to infiltrate their fellow fans, film and report their behaviour. This has very serious potential to turn fans against each other, which could lead to reprisals and further complications with officialdom.

But using money to curry positive reporting has long been a part of the Qatari approach to the 2022 World Cup (even if no impropriety has been conclusively found).

I’m proud to say that the late, great Michael Cockerill was a friend of mine. I happened to ring him one evening in 2010 some months before the FIFA decision was made, and he said: “Guess where I am.”

He was on a plane, being flown business class, to visit Qatar and report on the status of their bid.

In fact, we both made the predictable jokes about the futility (as we perceived it) of their bid as what bunch of maniacs would give Qatar the World Cup – in their summer – as the rules stipulated at that time.

And it was about that time that FIFA’s technical committee recommended (on several grounds) that the Qatari bid ought to be ruled out. But what would technical committees know?

A week or so after my conversation with Michael, he published an article in the SMH which caused me to choke on my coffee.

It was not praising the Qatari bid, but it certainly praised the bid organisation and the quality of their logistics. It concluded with (something like) the words: “don’t write them off.”

Michael must have been seriously impressed by what he saw in Qatar and I’ll never forget how that article sent a small tremor through my world. In my naïve stupidity I actually believed that Australia was some chance of winning the bid. Our main rival (I felt) was America and that the battle would come down to a final vote between us.

It’s not the only time I’ve been wrong, but it was one of the more spectacular examples. We went out first with just one vote (claimed to have been posted by multiple electors).

The tragedy of Michael Cockerill’s early death still lingers – he was one of our very greatest football journalists – but I still wonder…

Was he trying to tell us something?

 

Adrian's books can be purchased at any good bookstore or through ebook alchemy. His first sci-fi novel (Asparagus Grass) will be published by Hague Publishing in early 2023.