Lessons to learn from Qatar hosting World Cup
Visitors take photos with a Fifa World Cup sign in Doha on October 23, 2022, ahead of the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup football tournament.
What you need to know:
- The publicity of the event began as soon as Qatar was awarded the hosting rights.
- This ensured an aura of expectations among all football fans around the world.
In about 72 hours, the attention of the whole universe will be turned towards Qatar when the World Cup kicks off in the Asian country.
Rightly so, the World Cup is one of the biggest events on the globe. It brings the best of the best as far as football is concerned.
It is a stage on which careers are made while others are broken - a stage filled with twists and turns as different teams battle for glory.
Away from the field, Qatar must be the envy of the whole world by virtue of such a magnanimous event.
Back home, the World Cup presents an opportunity for us to harness lessons on how to host mega-events.
A few months ago, we lost our bid to host the World Championships in 2025 as Tokyo were chosen as the host city ahead of Nairobi.
It was a hammer blow no doubt but we remained determined to one day become the first African country to stage an event of such magnitude.
The Qatar World Cup is a live lesson on what we need to realise this dream.
One of these is the need to establish partnerships with as many stakeholders as possible including corporate entities.
It is noteworthy the number of sponsors who have partnered with Fifa to support the World Cup, which has subsequently boosted the revenue stream.
We can also learn a lot from the organisers as far as marketing and creating hype around the event is concerned.
The publicity of the event began as soon as Qatar was awarded the hosting rights.
This ensured an aura of expectations among all football fans around the world.
This is the same case with the construction of stadia and other infrastructure, which commenced as soon as the hosting rights were granted.
These are key lessons — and many more — that we can draw from Qatar’s hosting of this tournament. In the long term, we can host sports mega-events the size of the World Cup. Our dreams are valid.
