Qatar and Saudi Arabia Use Their Pocketbooks to Cheat Their Way into the World Cup

The unparalleled spending of Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the soccer world over the past decade has brought them influence, attention, and access that few other nations can rival.  But for the first time, it appears to have had an effect on events on the field as well.  

To many, Qatar and Saudi Arabia appear to have cheated their way into the World Cup, buying influence in FIFA's Asian Football Confederation (AFC).  The Qatari and Saudi national teams have secured places in next summer’s World Cup after AFC (a recipient of “lavish funding” from the two Gulf states) “changed qualification rules to give them home-field advantage, extra rest days and access to more tickets for fans,” according to the New York Times. 

The moves enraged opponents and brought new scrutiny to how power works atop global soccer.  "I simply can't understand it," said Carlos Queiroz, the coach Oman's national team, "I am absolutely convinced that this playoff format was the worst possible [thing] that football leadership could have done to its own credibility."   

The AFC had eight guaranteed spots for its members in next year's World Cup.  The Federation established the qualification process for its 47 member member countries a year before the qualification matches began in 2023.  After the early qualifiers, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates would have locked up hosting rights and top seeding for the final round of matches, based on their performances in those earlier qualifiers.  But the federation suddenly changed course in March.  Rather than giving hosting rights to the Iraqi and Emirati teams (as per the previously announced qualification process), it instituted a bidding process.  Guess who won the bids to host the final round of qualification matches?  The Asian federation awarded hosting rights not to Iraq and the Emirates, but to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, without explanation.  

Even worse, AFC went against their own qualification process, awarding Saudi Arabia top seeding (despite being outranked by Iraq in the early rounds). The higher seed comes with double the number of days off between games, compared with its opponents.  Host teams also have the privilege of selecting the venues for its games.  As a top seed, Qatar hosted its final qualifying match against UAE in one of its smallest stadiums (despite having a number or larger ones it built for the 2022 World Cup).  The small stadium limited the attendance by UAE fans, whose access to tickets was further restricted by the Qatar's ticketing policy.  UAE ended up losing the match in the face of highly aggressive Qatari fans, who disrupted the final stages of the game by throwing debris on the field.  Qatar's captain, Akram Afif, acknowledged later that he had goaded fans into the misbehavior, underlining the benefit of Qatar's home-field advantage.

National federations, competing teams and fans were furious with AFC's unprecedented last-minute changes to the qualifying process.  Miguel Maduro, FIFA’s former Head of Governance under current President Gianni Infantino, said that the “sudden change of regulations is the latest example of how soccer’s leaders have backpedaled from promises to be more transparent following a global corruption scandal in 2015."

Qatar and Saudi Arabia's lavish spending has repeatedly called into question soccer's credibility, particularly after FIFA (its global governing body) awarded the tiny Qatar the hosting rights to the 2022 World Cup in a bidding process widely seen as corrupt.  More outrage ensued when FIFA short-circuited its own rules and delivered the 2034 tournament to Saudi Arabia without competition.