With just over 50 days left, the curtain is about to rise on the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. According to frontline reporters, the enthusiasm of the country's media and fans to travel to the site seems to have waned compared to previous editions.
1. Qatar's infrastructure is fully in place
This month, the reporter with the Chinese men's national football team to Europe and West Asia to cover, invited to participate in the Qatar World Cup Organizing Committee's Doha Roussel Stadium opening ceremony, and stayed in Qatar for five days. Many people's impression of Qatar, is the intertwining of steel and concrete and desert, monotonous life, seems unsuitable for hosting large-scale tournaments. However, the reporter visited the field, but found that Qatar has been fully prepared for this tournament.
Hardware facilities such as stadiums and training grounds, as well as transportation facilities such as highways and subways in the country, are all impeccable. Qatar's facilities for fans to watch the games have also been perfected.
For example, during the 2019 Club World Cup, it took more than an hour to drive from the airport to the hotel. This time, the drive was shortened to half an hour, due to road widening and new roads in Doha city. In addition, the new metro can be directly connected to the hotel, greatly reducing the travel time.
The reporter also experienced the new subway built especially for the World Cup. It takes 40 minutes by bus to get from the hotel to the Lusail Stadium, or longer in case of traffic jams, while it takes only 15 minutes by metro.
During the World Cup, the subway will be the most convenient way to travel. If you drive or rent a car, the parking lot is far from the stadium, a relative inconvenience. Even if there are three stadiums located outside of Doha that are temporarily not accessible by the metro, the organizing committee has arranged bus commuter buses, and the preferred option is still to take a bus.
The organizing committee said that the preparatory work has been basically completed, only the "final touches" remain. Reporters in Doha during the stay, also felt the change. The new Qatar National Museum is beautiful, but the surrounding area is still a construction site, the road needs to be cleaned up. Lusail Stadium is beautiful, but the surrounding area is also piled up with construction debris, the new building is empty, the appearance of the urgent need to decorate.
Undoubtedly, the arrival of the World Cup has turned Qatar upside down.
2. Chinese fans are not very enthusiastic about booking
Four years ago, China did not participate in the World Cup in Russia, but the number of tickets purchased by Chinese fans was among the top ten in the world. Without the epidemic, the number of Chinese fans traveling to Qatar to watch the World Cup would have surpassed that of Russia, not only because of the convenience of domestic flights to Qatar, but also because the tournament's schedule is set up to be very friendly to fans.
Qatar is a small country with eight World Cup stadiums not far apart. During the group stage, the kick-off times for each match were three hours apart each day, and with an hour between the end of one match and the kick-off of the next, fans had plenty of time to get to the next match.
During the World Cup, the organizing committee launched an activity called "which fans watch the most times", the fans who watch the most times can not only return the ticket cost, but also another organizing committee's award. It can be seen that Qatar, small in size, will boast one of the most convenient World Cup hosts to watch the game.
For Chinese fans now, the biggest problem in traveling to Qatar to watch the game is not the tickets, but the flights. Currently, the only direct flights from China to Doha are from Guangzhou and Hangzhou, and they are all once a week. This is in stark contrast to at least 10 cities in China that had daily flights to and from Doha before the epidemic.
It is understood that at the earliest time, the relevant person in charge of the famous domestic fan association "Dragon Team" had hoped to book accommodation during the World Cup, at least to receive more than 3,000 people. However, as the World Cup is approaching, the latest news is that only about 200 people need to be prepared for the accommodation will be enough. As of now, the trip to the tournament has not yet been finalized.
With Qatar's small size and large crowds during the World Cup, accommodation is indeed a big problem for many fans to solve. However, a more realistic problem for Chinese fans is the shortage of flights. On the one hand, the round trip is full of unknowns, and on the other hand, the cost becomes quite expensive.
Chinese fans traveled to Doha to watch the World Cup matches, but can they return home smoothly and on time? Currently, Chinese citizens holding Chinese passports are required to comply with the epidemic prevention process when returning home from abroad, and are not able to return as soon as they wish. With this comes a significant increase in economic costs.
During the epidemic, a number of Chinese companies still sent their staff to Qatar to assist the Qatari side in completing the relevant construction work. For example, in the newly opened subway, the glass windows of the subway carriages were specialized by a domestic subcontractor company. When the Qatari side raised problems with the glass during acceptance, the Chinese side had to send more than 60 staff members to solve the problems.
The reporter learned that: if there is no epidemic, round-trip airfare costs less than 10,000 yuan, and is a direct flight; but today, a person just round-trip airfare will require more than 40,000 yuan. Because there is no direct flight at this stage, the return trip to Egypt and other countries need to go to transit, transit period need to strictly implement the relevant epidemic prevention policies, and stay in Egypt for a few days, during the period of room and board and other costs need to pay for themselves.
Leaving aside the length of time, the company still has to pay a considerable amount of money for the implementation of the relevant anti-epidemic policy after returning to the country. This makes the cost of the whole work team increase significantly.
If companies have to pay these costs in order to do business, are fans still willing to pay these costs in order to watch football?
3. Qatar has outbreak management but also facilitates it
In Doha during the interview, the reporter felt the organizing committee and even the Qatari government for the fans to watch the game, the reporter interviews provided by the establishment of the epidemic prevention based on the convenience.
As a result of the outbreak, the procedures for entering Qatar this time around are a bit more involved compared to before.
Qatar, who have a domestic vaccination rate of 96%, the fifth highest in the world, require proof of New Crown vaccination for all travelers entering the country to watch the games, but not all countries' vaccines are recognized. Previously, Qatar purchased and stockpiled one million doses of the New Crown vaccine to immunize foreign fans during the World Cup who had not yet completed their vaccinations in their home countries.
Entrants are required to download the "Etruscan" APP on their cell phones, which is similar to the domestic epidemic prevention code, fill in their personal information, submit it and wait for the relevant departments in Qatar to review it, and a green code will be displayed after it is passed; fans are required to provide proof of nucleic acid within 48 hours or proof of a negative test for antipathogens within 24 hours prior to their departure; and various inspections are carried out when checking in for boarding passes. Various checks will be conducted.
However, upon arrival at the Doha airport, the airport staff would not ask the entrant to produce any relevant proof, the reporter just handed over his passport, and the customs officers did not make any inquiries, but only asked the reporter to enter his fingerprints, and then stamped the reporter to enter the customs, which was relatively simple.
Recently, Qatar relaxed its strict rules on wearing masks, and the influx of fans from outside the country will at least allow for mask freedom.
With the basic immunization process completed, Qatar has made it easy for everyone to obtain a visa. As long as a World Cup ticket is ordered online in advance and approved, it is possible to apply for a "haya card" through a designated Qatari website, which is similar to the "fan card" used for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
With this card, you no longer need an additional visa. During the World Cup, foreign fans can travel freely at the public transportation level with this card. Those who have this card can also bring along three friends or family members who did not buy tickets to the game and enter Qatar with a minimal visa-on-arrival fee.
In the past, many foreign tourists, including Chinese, were able to get visas on arrival for Doha, but as of Nov. 1, the policy was temporarily canceled in hopes of reducing the population in Qatar during the World Cup in order to allow more fans to enter the country to watch the game.
In order to address the lack of hotel capacity, the Government of Qatar allows and encourages nationals to open their homes to foreign tourists, subject to prior declaration.
Middle Eastern countries hosted the World Cup for the first time, Qatar's neighbors are inevitably rubbing it in. Reporters stranded in Doha during the interview, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Iran and other neighboring countries, have announced an increase in daily flights between Doha.
All of these countries fly to Doha in less than an hour, and they have also implemented a 60-day visa-free policy for fans who have already purchased tickets. For fans, whether they are arranging accommodation or traveling, they have more and more options for their trip.
The day before the official opening of the Lusail Stadium, the Qatari side also announced a temporary measure: the reactivation of the former Doha International Airport.
After the opening of Hamad International Airport in 2014, the original Doha International Airport turned into an airport for the landing and taking off of private jets of the royal family or VIP business jets, as well as serving as an airport for the air force to take off and land. This time, to make it easier for fans to enter the country from neighboring countries to watch the game, starting September 15, flights of low-cost airlines from the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain will no longer take off and land at Hamad International Airport and will all be switched to the old Doha International Airport.
The old airport is closer to downtown Doha, making it easier to move around.
Everything Qatar does is for the fans to come and fill the stadium up, only unfortunately it doesn't matter too much to our fans.
In Qatar World Cup after 10 years of preparation process, the reporter has no less than 20 times to Qatar for interviews, know that this World Cup is not lack of "Chinese elements". In addition to those gold sponsors, there are more Chinese elements seeped into the details of the World Cup.
Almost every World Cup stadium has a Chinese connection, such as the Lusail Stadium, which was designed by a Chinese company and built by a construction team, the first time a Chinese company had built a World Cup final venue.
The Doha 974 Stadium consists of 974 shipping containers, which were produced entirely in China by a company in Yangzhou.
Therefore, we can also be less pessimistic understanding: the Chinese men's soccer team is absent from the World Cup, Chinese fans are absent from the World Cup, but China is not absent from the World Cup after all.
