PANAJI: More Indians made it to the Fifa World Cup in Russia than several of the 32 participating countries.
According to data provided by Fifa, 19,352 tickets were allotted to Indian citizens during the World Cup four years ago. India were among the top-five non-participating attendees with United States and China leading the charts. But when the next edition of the football spectacle kicks off in Qatar, India could be ahead of the queue.
“We do believe, from the population that we have here and those who will fly from India because of the (geographical) proximity, Indians will attend in big numbers,” Fatma Al Nuaimi, executive director of communications, Qatar Supreme Committee told TOI early this week.
Significantly, Indians constitute the single biggest group among all nationalities who are resident expats of Qatar.
“We know historically, based on ticket sales from Fifa, that Indians are a big market for the World Cup. India is one of our strategic markets. We do believe the geographical location, with three or four-hour flights, fans can follow their teams and enjoy the game,” said Al Nuaimi.
A World Cup of many firsts – first in the middle east, first for an Arab country – and the second in Asia, Qatar 2022 will also host the most compact version of the tournament. Fans don’t have to change accommodations or take internal flights.
“For a football fanatic, this will be a very intensive and compact World Cup,” said Al Nuaimi. “It’s never been like this where fans can watch two or even more matches a day. Our schedule has four matches (a day), lot of people can move from one venue to the other. Some stadiums are five minutes away and the longest distance is around an hour. It’s going to be a big incentive (to come to Qatar), unlike Brazil (2014) and Russia (2018).”
The next World Cup comes amidst the Covid-19 pandemic with financial gloom across the world. Many have lost jobs and businesses have suffered losses, so fans may not have saved enough to realise their dream, particularly in Qatar, perceived as a rich country. Al Nuaimi, however, feels Qatar would suit all pockets.
“We are working with different groups and trying to understand what are the misconceptions. For a lot of people, Qatar’s image is of a rich country, an expensive place. But we have different solutions, different options.
“People may assume there are only five-star hotels (here), but we do have a variety of options that fans can choose from. There are five-star, three-star (accommodation), service apartments, camps in the deserts and cruise ships that will act as temporary accommodation,” said Al Nuaimi.
On the infrastructural front, Qatar is ready for the World Cup much ahead of schedule. Five stadiums have already been completed, the sixth will be inaugurated next month, while the seventh will host the Fifa Arab Cup from November 30.
Seven of the eight venues for Qatar 2022 are installed with the energy efficient advanced stadium cooling system. Post the World Cup, the country is open to knowledge sharing.
“Qatar, and a lot of countries within Asia, have similar climate. These innovative technologies within the stadiums, and in a sustainable way, will help in imparting and transferring this knowledge to other countries,” said Al Nuaimi.
