– After Russia was very successful in organizing the World Cup in 2018, Russian friends have given great support to Qatar, especially with regard to organizing together with the World Cup committee in 2022, said Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, according to The Guardian . He met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Astana in Kazakhstan on Thursday. To Putin directly, he said: – We thank you for this and we are proud of this relationship. It will last until the WC is over. I am very happy to see you. Thank you very much. Photo: TURAR KAZANGAPOV / Reuters It is happening even though Qatar condemned Russia’s annexation of Ukraine earlier this week. Putin responded by promising the emir that Russia will do everything they can to share the experience they have from organizing a World Cup, and said: – I am sure it will be a success. It causes many people to raise their eyebrows. – Pinleg Berit Lindeman, who is general secretary of the Helsinki Committee and a member of the ethics committee of the Norwegian Football Association, is not impressed by the award. – The fact that Qatar cooperates, or announces cooperation on the World Cup with Russia in particular, is shameful, says Lindeman to news, but is adamant that she thinks the whole thing is a pretext. STUSSA: General Secretary Berit Lindeman. Photo: PRIVAT The country is particularly preoccupied with securing interests within politics, trade and gas, and then the football World Cup becomes a natural topic of conversation, she believes. – They are trying to sweeten the pill by meeting Putin, and to try to have open channels to Russia. Then the football World Cup will be something they can talk about, and express something about. For example, they cannot talk together about Ukraine, because they have conflicting views there, explains Lindeman. The Secretary-General thinks it is obvious that Qatar should not cooperate with Russia on the World Cup, and should have ended it after the invasion of Ukraine. Putin’s response, she believes, testifies to a country in desperate need of support. – It is a terribly embarrassing situation for Russia. What is probably at stake is that Russia wants support and cooperation with Qatar regarding gas and industry. Putin has few friends left, and he is trying to hold on to what he can find. Lindeman believes it is only one way to prevent such situations from happening again. – We must stop assigning the international championships to dictatorships and totalitarian states, and then we will avoid such hopeless situations in the future, she says. Mediating role Rania Maktabi, associate professor of political science at Østfold University, says that the conversation reflects Qatar’s political line. They “talk to everyone”, as long as it promotes their own interests. EXPERT: Maktabi has researched political conditions in the Middle East. Photo: Høgskolen i Østfold – Seen from a Western and NATO-allied point of view, it is not desirable to drag a belligerent and aggressive state power into the heat, as Sheikh Tamim does when he exchanges friendly passions about football with President Putin and a belligerent Russia. But, from the sheikh’s point of view, it is “business as usual”, says Maktabi. Since 1995, Qatar’s foreign policy has been built in a way that makes it more interest-based than ideologically based. The country will present itself as an independent third party, and as a bridge builder between parties in conflict, she says. Maktabi goes on to say that few Arab states are able to maintain this balancing act, and that there are two reasons why Qatar is able to maintain such a “contradictory” balancing act. – Qatar houses the largest US military base in the Middle East. Thus, it is not easy for the superpower USA, or other states that are allied with the USA, to criticize the country, she says and asserts: – The second reason is that Qatar is a country rich in governance. Financial muscles fuel any form of dissatisfaction or mistrust towards the Qatari authorities’ choice of political course, she says. Quite expectedly, Mari Norbakk, who is a postdoctoral fellow at Christian Michelsen’s institute and a social anthropologist specializing in the Middle East and especially Qatar and Egypt, believes that the conversation will probably not arouse major reactions within the country. – I do not think that the Qatari people see it as contradictory that they meet Putin the same week that they signed the resolution condemning Russia. They have worked hard to have a role as a mediator, so in this sense the dialogue with Russia is expected. But I don’t think this will be very popular among European countries, says Nordbakk to news. NOT SURPRISED: Postdoctoral fellow and social anthropologist Mari Norbakk. Photo: Chr. Michelsens Institute She is unsure how she should interpret the theme of the World Cup. – I perhaps read it as the Russians using it to pose, and give the impression of, or show, that they get access to Doha even if the team was kicked out, and that they are restricted by travel bans elsewhere, she says . Nevertheless, she does not want to add too much to the claim of cooperation. – Qatar has been and has been observed at several large events, not only in Russia in the run-up to the World Cup, so I personally do not add any more meaning to it than that, she says.
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