Warshaw World Cup: East Meets West and Lunch with an Arab

By Andrew Warshaw

It's early afternoon at the official FIFA Ticket Resale Center near downtown Doha.

I went expectantly, with my cousin and traveling companion, hoping to add a few more matches to those I had already purchased tickets for at this most unusual World Cup - my ninth overall but my first purely as a fan rather than a working journalist.

It's 29 degrees in the scorching sun and there's a long line of brightly dressed fans snaking around the strictly organized railings, all with the same idea. We're here in person because we had no fun acquiring tickets through the official online ticketing portal: clicking on the word "buy" as soon as a seat went on sale, we had the same experience maddening each time, a few seconds later, said seat is mysteriously no longer available.

None of us will be lucky, though. An unmanned megaphone on a rolling belt loop the same monotonous message over and over. "There are no tickets available for today's matches." Hopes were again dashed.

Upon further investigation, the gathered crowd learns that the only way to acquire any is through – you guessed it – the online ticketing portal.

It's a classic wrestling-22 scenario, made even more frustrating by the fact that there were a number of empty seats scattered around nearly each of the eight stadiums on matchdays. So much for being sure to see more than one match per day.

Despite this bureaucratic issue, as fans experience there have surely been fewer better organized World Cups to attend than Qatar 2022, despite the ongoing and important narrative on migrant workers' rights that continues to hang over the event and deserve to stay long after the final whistle.

My week in Qatar was weird and wonderful in so many ways in terms of sights, smells and sounds between east and west. Cleanliness without crime; Muslims respectfully called to prayer several times a day; local Qataris in their thobes and robes, many with their faces painted in team colors, Western style. A World Cup of contradictions, with unattractive street convenience stores alongside gaudy signs of wealth.

With the small Gulf state not used to being overrun with football fans from all over the world, there was a sense of unreality to it all. And at times, it all felt a little contrived, with fan areas and cafes sometimes giving off a "rent-a-crowd" vibe..

But the Arab region's passion for football is unmistakable. How many fans are local workers taking the chance to support their home country and how many flocked in from the participating nations themselves was hard to say, but also irrelevant. Rarely have I heard more noise from fans than the exuberantly generated by followers of Tunisia and Morocco.

In my experience of the World Cups, few people can compete with Qatar for the friendliness, courtesy and hospitality shown to guests in their country. The Qataris presented a welcoming front which helped dampen the entirely justified debate over whether the country should have won the tournament in the first place, let alone held it in the winter.

There were, don't get me wrong, a number of downsides: the exorbitant cost of stadium food and drink which, in the case of bottled water, was ten times higher than in an ethnic convenience store located on a side street. Or sometimes having to walk up to 45 minutes to get to the stadium once you get off the super efficient metro. On one occasion, my cousin and I brazenly commandeered a golf cart to get to the game on time, pleading physical incapacity!

But overall, the positives far outweigh the negatives. The so-called Hayya card, the personalized ID card for supporters, as well as the digital ticketing system that accompanies it, has proven to be a huge success in terms of free use of public transport by supporters and entrance to stadiums. There were also hordes of human assistants, official "guides" along the stadium routes shouting "metro, this way" and using giant foam fingers to direct the fans.

Security may have been tight (so tight that I had something as innocent as a pen confiscated after I was told I could stab someone with it), but she was also remarkably quick at the turnstiles. On one occasion, after politely explaining that the strange cream-colored liquid in my backpack was actually stomach medicine, the staff at the gates were understanding and courteous.

Another big plus was the almost total absence of ticket sellers and the feeling of being constantly safe – an important factor, especially for more distracted visitors like this writer.

When my cousin left a restaurant after inadvertently paying the bill in Chinese instead of Qatari currency, instead of being dismissed and questioned, he was very reverently told by the...