Apparently Saudi Arabia has cut off the land border, which is where and how Qatar gets most of their food. That seems a little scary as something that could theoretically happen in the lead-up to a major nationwide-hosted sporting event.
Qatar should NEVER had been awarded the World Cup. Period. They are a backwards country, do not have the infrastructure to hold such a tournament, and safety will be a huge issue. AND recall that the World Cup is held in the summer which is also what the 2022 WC was scheduled to do. But significant player concerns were raised about playing in Qatar in the summer to which they said they had a solid plan for their stadiums to keep the temperatures well within good playing ranges.
The last part of their bid is what really peaked my interest as an engineer with some experience in air flows. Their bid stated that they would be open air (not domed) stadiums and that their HVAC systems would keep the playing field temperatures below (now I don't recall the temp they specified but I think it was 85). a certain level. Well the short version of this engineering issue would be that given daytime temperatures that can exceed 115 degrees the air turnover required to keep the playing field to a playable level is huge. It would have required such massive air movement that the wind would have been howling on the field. Hardly quality playing conditions.
So fast forward to them getting the award. Well it turns out we can't really make the fields cool enough so lets move the WC to the winter. Three problems with this.
1. The bid proposal specifically stated that it would be in the summer.
2. Along with #1, the reason for this is that all the major soccer leagues in the world except MLS are played in the winter. NO federation wanted to release their star players for upwards of two months during their season.
3. The TV contract was approved and bid on a summer event. The winter is not near as appealing mostly due to the conflict with American football.
So what did FIFA do? Effing go ahead and award it to Qatar, then AFTER the fact agree to move it to the winter.
