(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Hassan al-Thawadi, secretary-general of the Supreme Committee for
Delivery & Legacy, discussed worker welfare, the challenges of
hosting a World Cup, and the stadium that will have a second life as a
wedding hall, among other issues, in an interview with The News York
Times (NYT).
Following are the highlights:
NYT: You are the secretary-general of the Supreme Committee for Delivery
& Legacy. That's quite a name. Did you come up with that?
Al-Thawadi: Yes. I've always been accused of not being too creative.
Q: What's the biggest obstacle you face? What's going to be the hardest part of putting on a World Cup?
A: I think it's difficult to distinguish one particular element. Simply
put, when you're organising major tournaments, as you get closer,
pressure keeps on piling up, scrutiny keeps on piling up. So it's just
the idea of continue of keeping focus on delivering on the projects, not
feeling the pressure because the timelines come in, not starting to get
into panic mode. We've been planning this for quite some time, and
we're delivering on the ground according to our schedule.
Q: There is something, though, that you have to contend with that other
events you've studied did not, and that is this is a very different
sporting event because of the cultural component.
A: Absolutely. If you look for parallels, look at South Africa during
2010 you experienced that first African World Cup, you feel that buzz.
You land in Joburg or Cape Town and walk the streets and you feel that
electricity. It's the same thing over here: it's the first World Cup in
the Middle East. It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and we've always
focused on it being a regional World Cup. This is a World Cup beyond
Qatar. It's a cultural experience.
Q: Does the current situation in the region, the blockade of Qatar by
some of its neighbours, complicate that idea of making it a regional
event?
A: No. We've always taken the simple position that sports is elevated
from conflict. This is always a platform to bring people together, and
to separate it from any political ideology.
Q: Do you think your neighbours will play along with that?
A: I can't speak on their behalf. From our side, we've always taken that
position. Even today, from our side, everybody's welcome. I hope that
they see reason, and recognise this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for
the people of our region. We're football crazy. I mean, the Middle East,
the Arab world, is football crazy, plain and simple. You go to any
corner, whether it's in Qatar, whether it's in Saudi, whether it's in
Morocco, and start speaking football, and you will find a very, very
deep cauldron of passion and knowledge.
Q: The compact nature of Qatar's World Cup means the stadiums will be
only an hour or two apart at most, and sometimes much less. Are there
plans to take advantage of that, and does that raise security issues?
A: The compact World Cup has a lot of advantages, first and foremost for
the fans. Whoever has experienced previous World Cups, you always had
to figure out ways of travelling, and accommodation, trying to follow
your team, and it puts stress on fans. Here, the fans have the
opportunity to attend more than one match a day.
Q: There is talk about taking advantage of that, right? Of selling multiday or multigame passes?
A: That's what I'm saying. You can watch a match in the afternoon and
then go for the evening match as well. So it adds that element for fans
who want to do that. And more importantly, for players. Because the
players don't have to worry about travelling from one place to another.
They don't have to worry about playing a match in a certain city,
getting up early, getting on a flight, moving on, getting used to a new
accommodation, resting, and then going out and playing. Everybody is
focused on what matters: delivering to the best of their ability on the
pitch. And that can only be good for the fans.
Q: And security concerns from having all those different fans so close to one another?
A: You look at the Olympics, it has that Olympic Village feel, that
global, international, we-are-a-global-community feel to it. And that's
what this World Cup offers as well. In terms of managing that, and
security, we are in constant co-ordination and co-operation with major
security operations throughout the world, learning from them, whether
it's in terms of Champions League matches or league matches. We're
present at every single major tournament.
Q: But mixing rival fans can lead to trouble, like the day when English
and Russian fans fought in Marseille at the European Championships last
year.
A: I think it'd be very cynical and very pessimistic to look at certain
examples and say, 'This is the norm, when sometimes they're the
outlier.
Q: Have you had feedback from FIFA, or from individual associations,
about the idea that a team might be able to spend the whole tournament
in one place?
A: That was the essence of our bid, and for a lot of people it was
appealing. What matters for us is to create an environment for the teams
and the coaches. But I think it's important to note that major
international teams have come to Qatar to use it as the base for their
winter camps Barcelona, Real Madrid, Milan, Bayern Munich. And people
come because we have got some of the best facilities in the world. State
of the art. And that's the reason they continue to come back.
Q: Qatar has taken tough criticism from human rights and labour groups
over the treatment of workers, some of it quite severe. We're interested
in your thoughts on that.
A: No country is perfect. We have issues, and we have challenges when it
comes to being the fastest growing nation at a point in time in terms
of both population and economic activity. Unfortunately, while the laws
were in place, the ability and the resources to implement and enforce
these laws were challenging. With the World Cup coming on board, of
course the spotlight came in, but this is something we recognised. So,
when we said legacy, we mean the World Cup is an opportunity to be a
catalyst for positive change, and to increase the momentum for
initiatives that the government was already committed to. And of course
worker welfare is one of them.
There's obviously what the government has done, which I can't speak to
with authority. What I can tell you is what we've done as the Supreme
Committee. When we won the World Cup, we developed a charter, we
assessed the market conditions, we looked at the gaps and the issues, we
consulted with NGOs and the construction sector, to understand the
challenges from their side, and we developed a set of standards.
We are now in our second edition, and these standards are a live
document, and they are constantly being reviewed. To ensure they're
being enforced, we've developed a four-tier auditing system: a
self-audit by the contractors themselves; our own audits that we do;
we've got a third-party auditor that conducts its own and issues its own
annual report; and we've of course got the government auditing our
projects as well.
These issues that you're referring to in the news media weren't
reflected on us, weren't the World Cup project. There is only one report
that came out, from Amnesty International, where they had performed an
investigation, and then a year later they came to us and said: 'These
are our findings. What do you have to say about this? During that year
we didn't realise Amnesty International had performed that
investigation we identified these issues and were fixing them. So,
actually our system worked. Because as the projects started ramping up,
we started identifying the areas and the gaps and so on, and we had
addressed a lot of these issues.
Q: So, if we called Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, they would say everything's been fixed?
A: They wouldn't say everything's been fixed because I'm not saying
everything's been fixed. What I'm saying is this is a work in progress.
This is not something that can be fixed overnight. But you can
definitely talk to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and talk
about our commitment, talk about our transparency with them, about the
progress that we've made. And I would urge you to call them and ask them
that question. On the other hand, when you call them, ask them if all
the conditions in the United States were fixed. Then I'd be interested
in you making a comparison on the answer.
Because for me it's very simple: the issue that we're talking about, of
worker welfare, is an issue that the global community faces. Every
country in the world faces it.
Q: Should Israel qualify, would the team and its fans be welcome?
A: Everyone is welcome. It's a simple answer: everybody is welcome.
Q: How many visitors do you expect in 2022?
A: Cumulatively, we're talking about 1.2mn.
Q: Can Qatar handle that yet? How much of the infrastructure for that is in place already?
A: It's being developed. But this is the vision of the World Cup for us.
When we first bid, the idea was simple: utilising this World Cup as an
opportunity as a catalyst for the country's growth, for its original
urban development plans. So, as the country was expanding, the
infrastructure of the World Cup fit in with the country's plans. We
re-prioritised certain projects, obviously, to fulfil the World Cup
requirements, but that's just a milestone in the country's overall
development. So, the hotels required for the country's tourism
requirements are being developed. The Metro system is going to be
functioning by 2020. The road networks are being developed as well. So
by 2020, 2021, everything is going to be in place.
Q: How do you avoid the kind of waste that Brazil and South Africa
experienced, these massive stadiums they don't need after the tournament
leaves?
A: When we submitted the bid, that was the first thing in our mind: we
wanted to avoid white elephants, a reminder of money that was spent and
then not utilised.
So, take the stadiums: each stadium we've designed, we assured that it
was on the transit network that was being developed for the country, and
that each one had to be a centre for the community, that each one had a
legacy story already developed.
We realised the FIFA requirements in terms of capacity didn't fulfil our
needs beyond 2022, so we developed the modular seating concept. We
decided on the stadiums we would need, and these would have a mixture of
fixed and modular seats. So, the fixed seats would be the capacity we
need about 15,000 to 20,000 and the rest would be taken out. Other
stadiums, the entire concept is modular, so we'll be taking the entire
seating capacity out.
How did we decide which would be temporary? We engaged the community.
For every design, we went to them and asked, 'What do you need? What are
you missing? How can this facility assist you? So, for example, down
south is a small little city called Al Wakrah. We went to the community
and asked them, 'What do you need? They turned around and said one of
the things we need is wedding halls. 'There's a lot of these weddings,
and we always go up to Doha we need a wedding hall. So, within the
project we developed an area for the wedding hall. There was a need for
school facilities, so within the master plan we also have developed
space for school facilities. Every single stadium has that kind of
story, to be used as a centre for its community.
But that's stadiums. In terms of infrastructure, the Metro system, the
road network, it's part of the urban development of the country.
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