World Cup 2022

Potentially the first Middle Eastern country to host the World Cup, Qatar has secured Algerian-born French soccer legend Zinedine Zidane as a spokesperson for its World Cup bid.

In an advertisement for Qatar’s bid, Mr. Zidane talks about how he faced challenges after immigrating to France as a child, and emphasizes the benefits that having the tournament in the Middle East could have for children there.

Qatar boasts a compact host site (the country is slightly smaller than Connecticut) and a nearly $60 billion investment in roads, rail, and a new international airport. The country’s bid also promises outdoor, air-conditioned, carbon-neutral stadia to combat 100-degree Fahrenheit daytime temperatures. To boot, Qatar is television revenue friendly: it’s within prime-time reach of about 3 billion viewers.

FIFA, however, remains concerned about the fact that virtually everything Qatar promises must be built in the next twelve years; a hiccup in any one of the major proposed projects would leave FIFA with little flexibility.