Will Qatar regret hosting the World Cup?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2022
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Qatar has gone from being a quietly successful, enormously rich, largely anonymous speck on the world map to being a pariah of the Middle East.
It had hoped hosting the World Cup would bring fame and more fortune - not the unedifying stink of corruption and rows about workers, women and LGBTQ+ rights.
Are they wondering if it was all worth it? And will a gratifyingly rampant England victory finally stir the relatively subdued fans watching back home?
Planning: Melissa Tutesigensi
Socials: Georgia Foxwell
Video: Will Gibson-Smith
Production: Gabriel Radus
Deputy Editor: Tom Hughes
Executive Producer: Dino Sofos
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.2 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:13.6 | Guess what? We are in the pub and we're probably the final kick of the game. Iran has scored. |
| 0:20.5 | But they've got two goals. |
| 0:22.7 | England have six. We are on minute 102. It has been the longest football game ever. |
| 0:30.6 | And to be honest, it started slightly dismally. Raining, empty pubs, no atmosphere, no flags, and I think things have turned around. |
| 0:40.8 | And it'll be really interesting to see whether this World Cup is now about football rather than politics, which is what we all assume. |
| 0:49.8 | The final whistle has blown. The applause ring out in this particular pub where we're watching the game. |
| 0:56.8 | Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:01.5 | The Newsagents. It's John. It's Emily. |
| 1:05.0 | And we are back from the pub. Not too much of the worst. We're A couple of Guinnesses later, but we are okay. |
| 1:12.6 | But I think after today, you're going to see a few more England flags being hung out of windows |
| 1:17.5 | on black cabs and around the place. I think people will start infusing. But it's hard to kind of work out |
| 1:23.9 | what best symbolises the start of this World Cup because it has been an extraordinary |
| 1:30.4 | shit show. I mean, is it the accommodation where you pay 175 quid a night to stay in a tent? |
| 1:37.9 | Where you can peel back the floor and see the desert. Here we go. Welcome to my crib. It says pretty |
| 1:43.0 | basic. Two single beds and the ground felt a bit bumpy. |
| 1:46.5 | So I had a little inspection. And yep, that is sand underneath. |
| 1:50.5 | I don't know what she was expecting to see. But it was also, you know, first thing in the morning. |
| 1:54.8 | And the temperature in there is 28 degrees. And the fan, not surprisingly, all it's doing is blowing hot air in your face and not |
| 2:02.6 | calling you one little bit. We were committed to watching the opening of the Qatar Ecuador game, |
| 2:09.9 | not just for the football or the fanfare in brackets. There wasn't an awful lot. Major broadcasters |
... |
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