It is October 13, 1993. A Wednesday night. The weather is unremarkable. I am nine years old and my life is about to change forever.
Three hours in a metallic green Ford Sierra estate await.
My dad has picked me up early from school so I already feel like the absolute rock star of Blwyddyn 4. The Llandysul bypass is many years away from completion and so the journey through Wales’ backwaters to the Welsh capital is stomach churning. Thoughts turn towards the sweet release of Pont Abraham, that despicable pitstop held in such high regard by us children of rural Wales. A place of family holiday and school trip toilet stops. Of hardened breakfast sausages sat under heat lamps. On the edge of the M4’s yellow brick road.
Why Qatar? Why did it have to be Qatar. Why this year? Why this World Cup? This is awkward. I’ve slated Newcastle fans for blindly welcoming their new Saudi-backed Bond villain overlords.
I’ve given Pep Guardiola side-eye for his passionate support for jailed Catalan leaders while ignoring political prisoners in Manchester City-backed Abu Dhabi.
I’ve laughed at Paris Saint-Germain’s annual failed attempt to win the Champions League with the financial backing of a monarchy.
Don’t get me started on millionaire golfing mercenaries joining the LIV tour. Or Anthony Joshua fighting in the desert.
Appalling human rights records are being tucked away behind state-backed sporting vanity projects.
And this is the biggest of the lot. This is the worst example of sports-washing yet. And now I’m bloody going, with a massive grin on my face. Like a giant bloody mug. Dripping with hypocrisy.
The NCP in Westgate Street feels exciting and dangerous. Awash with a pungent cocktail of piss, fags and Carling Black Label. Ahhhh the 90s. I’ve got something in my eye.
Walking past the Model Inn to town is electrifying. Stone Island-donned swaggering limbs. Cheap meat and sizzling onions in stale rolls.
And now a green neon sign is directing us down a flight of stairs, into the belly of Queen Street. Glorious mustard surroundings, beige uniforms lined up behind bowls of salad, protected by a single glazed sneeze guard.
Pillars. This grand old lady of Cardiff. This vast canteen. With its faux wooden trays, stainless steel and wicker chairs. Its cloud of fog floating above lukewarm plates of chips, seeping from trellis panels that separate us from men filling ashtrays with Benson and Hedges.
So what’s the problem with Qatar then? Organisers of the 2022 World Cup have called it a tournament like no other, and they aren’t wrong. Let’s have a quick look at what the holiday brochures say.
Same-sex sexual activity carries a maximum prison sentence of seven years under the country’s Penal Code. In addition to the code, Qatar also operates Sharia courts in which it is technically possible for men who engage in same sex intimacy to receive a death sentence. Adultery can also lead to the death sentence, or flogging. LGBT+ people in Qatar have allegedly been arrested and ill-treated with some instances documented just weeks ago.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has reported horrific cases of transgender, gay and bisexual citizens being detained in an underground prison where they were physically beaten and sexually harassed. According to HRW, women need permission from men to marry, travel, pursue higher education or make decisions about their children.
Over 80% of Qatar’s population of three million are foreign migrant workers. The treatment of these workers has been described as akin to modern slavery under the country’s Kafala system. An investigation by the Guardian newspaper stated that more than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had died in Qatar since the World Cup decision was announced in 2010. Migrant builders who literally built the stadiums and infrastructure were found crammed into inadequate housing and paid £1 an hour. Some were made to work 12 hour days and six-day weeks.
But other than that, and the fact this is a place deemed so dangerously unsuitable for sport it can’t be played in the summer in case people actually die, Qatar seems a fine choice.
The brutal shell of the old Arms Park National Stadium looks like some sort of concrete mutant spider stuck on its back. A spaceship in the middle of a city.
But we’re not beamed up to it. This has to be earned. A million grey steps to the heavens. And then that moment. That feeling. As vivid today, nearly 30 years later. Walking out from the dark concourse, through its narrow passage, towards the light.
Stepping into the gladiatorial arena feels like everything and nothing. In my head there isn’t a sound. Total silence. I can’t hear, I can’t move. Time has stopped. Frozen. I am aghast. Winded. Then finally as a sharp intake of breath and the amphitheatre roars to life. There are choirs and choruses and beams of light cast on a perfect green rectangle. It is gigantic. Incomprehensible. Incredible.
When I think about it now the hairs on the back of my neck still stand. Pure childhood wonder. A perfect, ingrained image that will last forever.
It has emerged that 40 fans from Wales (and other countries) have been paid by Qatar to attend the World Cup on the provision they promote a positive image of the country, including singing songs and giving generally glowing reviews on social media.
Dai Williams from Skewen writes on Twitter: “Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani is doing a crackin job byt. He’s a good lad and all the migrant workers I’ve spoken to say he’s the best boss they’ve ever had.”
On one hand it’s a hilariously mad idea which we can easily mock but it’s equally disturbing. The rich and powerful run this place as they please. They control the poor with their wealth and they are constantly paying outsiders to look the other way.
FIFA has written to all World Cup participating nations to “focus on football” and not get involved with issues of ethics or morality.
"Please do not allow football to be dragged into every ideological or political battle that exists,” Gianni Infantino recently wrote on his solid gold laptop.
You can’t blame Gianni for wanting to avoid lectures on morality. It must be bloody annoying when people keep dying while building stadiums for your tournament.
This is a bloke who once tried to flog the idea of hosting the World Cup every two years instead of four, to solve the migrant crisis.
“We need to find ways to include the whole world to give hope to Africans so that they don’t need to cross the Mediterranean in order to find maybe a better life but, more probably, death in the sea,” he said.
Focus on the football. Unless not focussing on the football is more lucrative I suppose. So what do you do then? Boycott something you’ve waited your entire life for?
Gary Neville got rinsed on Have I Got News For You for trying to justify the fact he will earn shed loads of money in Qatar covering the tournament while also banging on about how terrible the place is.
Gary is using an argument which helps me sleep at night. It’s undeniably a convenient narrative. It goes like this. Boycotting won’t stop the World Cup happening. Someone else will replace Gary if he didn’t go and if he’s there he can at least highlight what is going on out there. He can at least use his platform. And platforms are being used. Despite Gianni Infantino’s pleas.
Australia’s Socceroos have released a video with players delivering a strong message raising concerns about the “suffering” of migrant workers and the inability of some people in Qatar to “love the person they choose”.
Denmark will play in "toned down" shirts to protest against host Qatar's human rights record.
Gareth Bale is among the captains of ten countries who plan to wear rainbow-coloured OneLove armbands to promote diversity and inclusion during the Qatar World Cup. All this will of course be labelled “virtue signalling” by the frothing, purple-faced ‘all lives matter’ brigade. The reality of course is that symbolic gestures are welcome, but they will only go so far. And that’s not very far at all.
Some things have changed though. In 2019 Qatar reacted to mounting pressure by announcing massive reforms to workers' rights, ending Kafala which made it illegal for migrant workers to change jobs or leave the country. Minimum wages have been introduced. And employees can be harshly punished for not following new employment laws. There are still accounts of systemic abuse, and Qatar admits it is early days, but these changes would not have happened if the world wasn’t suddenly watching.
So do I really believe in the Gary Neville argument? Or is the honest truth that I just want to see Wales play in a World Cup, even if that comes at a moral and ethical cost? Definitely, maybe, as someone wrote in 1993.
The poetry of the terraces is industrial and thrilling and funny and there are waves of energy, soaring highs and plummeting lows and crippling tension and growing despair and niggling frustrations and bursts of anger.
And then it happens. A long throw and a goalmouth scramble and a swing and a miss then a shot and a save and it actually happens. Dean Nicholas Saunders. And it’s chaos. It’s scenes. It’s limbs.
It feels like a surge, like being thrust upwards, like being plugged into the mains, like being slapped in the face by the Tango man.
And then it happens again. Ian James Rush.
And this is me now. This is it. This is f****** immense. And then ten minutes later it’s done. 2-0. It’s over. But Christ, it’s only just begun.
And so here we are in 2022. After Yorath’s heartbreak, Gould’s misery, Mark Hughes’ false dawn, Toshack’s frustrations, Speed’s tragedy and Coleman’s dream. Here we are. On the cusp of history. Some 30 years of investment yielding its ultimate reward. And this might just be my only chance to see it.
So what do you do? How do you address the moral quandary, the elephant in the room, the golden handshake in exchange for a blind eye turned? Hope that the world’s gaze will change Qatar for good? Hope that FIFA will learn from its mistakes? Hope that greed does not prevail?
Fat chance. It’s bleak. But I do know this. Football is a silly and largely meaningless thing. But it does have power. Football does inspire and it does unite. It has the ability to bring cultures and religions and generations and socio-economic backgrounds together. It bonds people and it can be a catalyst for change. It does create legacies.
I hope the World Cup changes Qatar, even if just a little bit. But I already know what it will do for young people in Wales. And old people in Wales. It will make them believe in magic. It will instill pride and bring joy. I know it will because a single football match did that to a nine-year-old boy nearly 30 years ago.
And I have to believe that, because Wales are playing in the World Cup. In my lifetime. Keep saying it. Wales are playing in the World Cup.
Sion Morgan will be reporting live from Qatar for WalesOnline during the World Cup. Keep up to date with the very latest from Doha by signing up to the Don't Take Me Home newsletter here:
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