The recently concluded FIFA World Cup in Qatar witnessed a plethora of controversies, raising questions about whether the Arab country was the right fit to host the mega-sporting event. During the tournament, Doha’s cultural and religious values regularly clashed with liberal and global expectations. As a result of Qatar’s excessive focus on enforcing its norms on hundreds of thousands of fans, a major part of the event’s international media coverage was dedicated to the Gulf country’s punitive restrictions and its human rights abuses.
While it is understandable that the Qatari government would want foreigners to respect their country’s culture, is it justifiable to impose cultural norms on outsiders? And how does one decide where to draw the line?
In the Arab state, where Sharia dictates citizens’ daily life, the consumption and sale of alcohol is heavily restricted. Despite this, Qatar had initially agreed to relax its laws around alcohol while bidding to be venue hosts in 2010.
However, Doha backtracked on its assurances only a week before the World Cup opening ceremony on November 20. Budweiser, one of FIFA’s earliest and biggest sponsors and the exclusive beer distributor at the global tournament, was ordered to move its beer stalls within the stadium to more discreet locations.
Following this, the Associated Press reported two days prior to the first match that beer sales had been banned entirely in all eight stadiums.
According to anonymous sources cited by The New York Times, the move was made after the Qatari royal family raised concerns that Budweiser’s excessive visibility would offend the local population and could potentially create security issues.
The FIFA World Cup organisers on Friday announced that beer will not be sold to fans inside the stadiums in Qatar.
— Gurbaksh Singh Chahal (@gchahal) November 18, 2022
The country courted another controversy when it regulated the dress code of fans visiting from abroad.
The Qatari government’s tourism website notes, “Attitudes towards dressing in Qatar are relaxed, but visitors (men as well as women) are expected to show respect for the local culture by avoiding excessively revealing clothes in public. It is generally recommended for men and women to ensure their shoulders and knees are covered.”
Reaffirming this in a statement, FIFA strictly advised fans to refrain from removing clothing during the match or wearing clothing that “reveal(s) intimate body parts.” For good measure, the organisation added: “For the avoidance of doubt, body tattoos and body paint do not constitute clothing.”
Fans from the non-Arab world, clearly upset by the lack of freedom, protested plenty against the restrictions imposed on them. In fact, some even went to the extent of disobeying the rules to express their displeasure at their lack of agency.
The examples above do count as a breach of personal freedom for those who are used to open, traditionally Western societies, where men and women are allowed to dress, drink, and mingle freely.
However, for the sake of argument, the above examples are also variables under one’s personal control. Similar to how one can exercise one’s right to take certain actions, one can exercise the same agency in choosing inaction as well.
If toeing the line on Qatar’s ban on alcohol consumption and wearing certain clothing is against one’s wishes, one can just as easily watch the event from locations that do not encroach on one’s liberties.
In this manner, the privilege of hosting such a mega-event could have been enjoyed equally by the non-Western world as well, while avoiding offending either side.
#UPDATE: #FIFA president Gianni Infantino has accused the West of "hypocrisy" in its reporting about #Qatar on the eve of the #WorldCup.
— Mowliid Haji Abdi (@MowliidHaji) November 19, 2022
Infantino said "there are many countries that ban alcohol in stadiums, like #France, but since it's a #Muslim country, that's a problem." pic.twitter.com/QcRkZj4dtN
However, a major boundary that Qatar overstepped was in disallowing members of the LGBTQ+ community from expressing their identity. While banning revealing clothing and consumption of alcohol inside the stadiums are relatively minor inconveniences, restricting freedom of sexual expression to suit a region’s legal provisions and public sentiment is entirely different.
“While Qatar prepares to host the World Cup, security forces are detaining and abusing LGBT people simply for who they are, apparently confident that the security force abuses will go unreported and unchecked,” Rasha Younes, an LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch alleged. She urged Doha “to end impunity for violence against LGBT people.”
Younes’ comments came after the rights group reported ahead of the World Cup that Qatar Preventive Security Department forces were arbitrarily detaining members of the LGBTQ+ community and subjecting them to ill-treatment.
A lack of protections for women, journalists and LGBTQ people. The deaths of thousands of migrant workers.
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) January 8, 2023
On the human rights front, the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar was memorable for all the wrong reasons. https://t.co/il9JxoK1hv pic.twitter.com/1IfTf9OseR
Those detained alleged that their mistreatment came as the conservative country prepared to host the event. The group also documented six cases of “severe and repeated beatings” and five cases of “sexual harassment in police custody.”
Moreover, the group accused Qatari law enforcement of arresting people in public places “based solely on their gender expression” and unlawfully searching their phones. Making matters worse, transgender women detainees were required to undergo “conversion therapy” at a government-sponsored “behavioral healthcare” centre to secure their release.
In such extreme cases of violations of one’s personal expression and rights, international organisations and institutions involved in the event — FIFA in this case — must step in, take a stance for the cause, and find a way to bridge differences between various cultures and promote inclusivity.
Major events, such as the football World Cup, involve global participation, and therefore, require exemplary leadership. Western countries have traditionally hosted them, laying ground for the events’ free culture in accordance with the West’s malleable societal norms.
That said, a majority of such events are now hosted outside of the Global North, which calls for these host countries to be more inclusive as well. Nonetheless, non-compliance with Western standards should not exclude “others” aspiring to pick up the baton.
In sum, inclusivity includes all, irrespective of national and sexual identity. As we introduce fluidity in the norms surrounding events that aim to bring the global populace together, it would be counter-intuitive to leave out those whose innate identities are a source of others’ discomfort.