No beer, plenty of scandal: Qatar’s World Cup
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2022
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
The 2022 World Cup starts this weekend in Qatar, and it is already marked by controversy. Today on “Post Reports,” the geopolitical stakes of this year’s World Cup, and a preview of the most exciting players and teams to watch in Doha.
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World Cup organizers said Friday that they were abandoning plans to sell beer around match stadiums.
Qatar, a conservative Muslim country, strictly limits the sale of alcohol and bans its consumption in public places. It had made exceptions to those rules for the World Cup, but suddenly reversed course on Friday.
Whether or not fans can have a beer at a game may not seem like a big deal - but some worry about what this signals about other laws and cultural norms that had been expected to be suspended for the World Cup, around protests, press freedoms and LGBTQ rights.
“This is a World Cup that is defined by the controversy around it in many ways,” Ishaan Tharoor told our producer Arjun Singh. There were unexplained deaths of thousands of migrant workers during Qatar’s preparation for the tournament, and their families are still looking for answers.
“The World Cup is never just about the World Cup,” Ishaan explained.
To read more from Ishaan, sign up for his newsletter, Today’s WorldView.
Plus, we go to Chuck Culpepper, who is on the ground in Doha reporting on the tournament. He lays out what teams and players to watch in the coming weeks, and why the biggest strength of Team USA might be its biggest weakness.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The World Cup starts this weekend in Doha. |
| 0:19.6 | There's nothing as universal and as central in sports, at least in my view, as the World |
| 0:25.7 | Cup. |
| 0:26.7 | There's a lot of billions of people watching it. |
| 0:31.2 | It taps into the obsessions of nations everywhere in the world. |
| 0:33.3 | This is my colleague Ishan Therore. |
| 0:35.1 | He writes about foreign affairs for the post. |
| 0:37.1 | And he loves soccer. |
| 0:39.4 | There are very few things that connect so many human beings at the same time. |
| 0:44.7 | And when you go to a game as a fan, you are participating in it in an incredibly powerful |
| 0:51.0 | way as well. |
| 0:52.2 | But the Sears World Cup has a cloud over it. |
| 0:55.4 | This is a World Cup that is defined by the controversy around it in many ways. |
| 1:04.8 | And a lot of that controversy has to do with the fact that it's in cutter. |
| 1:08.5 | Conservative Muslim country where homosexuality is illegal, free speech is restricted, and |
| 1:14.0 | public consumption of alcohol is banned. |
| 1:16.7 | Today, the country announced at the very last minute that they no longer plan to allow |
| 1:21.6 | alcohol to be sold in stadiums. |
| 1:24.3 | And while the stakes of whether fans can buy a beer during a game are not life or death, |
| 1:29.4 | this decision also raises concerns about whether Qatar might reneg on other agreements |
| 1:34.0 | it made with FIFA about suspending local laws and customs. |
| 1:37.8 | Like will fans who are gay be at risk? |
... |
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