SPORT BUSINESS OBSERVATORY -
Jean-Baptiste Guégan is a member of the Sport Business Observatory, a sports geopolitics consultant, teacher, author and lecturer.
Article written in collaboration with Mourad El Bouanani and Alexandre Buzenet
To discover
DOSSIER - The Sport Business Observatory
In Zurich, on December 2, 2010, Qatar was named host country for the 2022 World Cup. To everyone's surprise.
Twelve years later, the Western vision of this micro-state nestled on the western coast of the Gulf has evolved considerably.
Far from the unknown emirate of the 1990s, Qatar has become a brand to the point that many articles are devoted to it today.
"
Exist, seduce and win
", this is how we could summarize the strategy of this emirate which fascinates as much as it worries.
Exist through sport, a question of survival and nation branding
“Putting on the map!”
launched, in 2004, Sheikh Hamad al Thani, the father of the current emir.
A simple way to sum up the thirst for influence of Qatari decision-makers in a world that is fragmenting and escaping us.
At the heart of multiple challenges (energy, demographics, economics and geopolitics), Qatar has gradually (re)constructed its image on the international scene over the past twenty years.
How did he do it?
Quite simply by positioning itself in niches[1] as diverse and complementary as culture, education with the Qatar Foundation, information with Al Jazeera, tourism…and sport, the area with the highest global visibility.
Qatar's sports diplomacy[2] offers us a key to understanding that is all the more promising in that it runs counter to traditional sports and diplomatic initiatives.
The Qatari sports score is part of a long-term process.
And it denotes.
Whether by its wealth, its construction, its sprawling side but also because of the enormous capital allowed by the excess investment capacity from liquefied natural gas.
Global Positioning Marketing
Sport is undeniably present at all levels of our societies.
He crosses and transcends borders through his practice alone.
It is redistributed into a “
total phenomenon
”[3]and brings together spectacle, merchandise, market share, but also symbolic representations, affiliations and identities.
As we underline with Lukas Aubin in the
Geopolitical Atlas of Sport
, the monopoly of the traditional powers of sport has withered, favoring a multipolarization of sporting events and a global redistribution of performance and sporting mega-events.
Organizing international sport is therefore not trivial for Qatar.
This is part of a strategy of "
global positioning marketing
".
This Nation branding and territorial marketing strategy[4] (Loïc Ravenel, 2011) consists of existing through sport and the ability to welcome the world through sport.
In Qatar, it is illustrated in particular by an outgoing policy of hosting international sporting events.
The emirate first started by taking an interest in luxury sporting events, from motorcycle Grand Prix to yacht racing, before a spectacular move upmarket in recent years.
Cycling tour, ATP tennis tournament in Doha, world athletics championship in 2019, horse and car races.
No global sport escapes Qatar.
The Losail Formula 1 Grand Prix held since 2021 is one of the latest examples.
Already in 2013, we counted nearly 70 sporting events organized on Qatari soil.
25 had an international dimension, 11 a regional dimension (Arab, Asian or GCC regional championships) for 30 local events.
The case of horse racing is a telling example.
The country hosts two major events on the world circuit: The “Longines Global Champions Tour Doha” and the “
Qatar International Show Jumping Championships.
".
A major buyer of thoroughbreds and possessing some of the most well-stocked stud farms in the world, such as those at al-Shahania, Qatar is a leading equestrian power.
The Qatar Racing & Equestrian Club also allocates substantial sums to the sponsorship of emblematic horse racing events such as the Grand Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, organized at the Longchamp racecourse every first Sunday in October, now called the "
Qatar Prix ".
of the Arc de Triomphe
”[1].
In addition to this situation, there is a desire for events, marked in particular by the organization in 2012 of a political forum devoted to sport (Doha Goals).
The Grand Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, held at the Longchamp racecourse every first Sunday in October, now called the "Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe" Panoramic
Inspire, seduce and naturalize to sportify Qatar: learn to win
Despite this desire to organize and welcome world sport, sports practice remains very much in the minority in Qatar.
Like its regional neighbours, demographic and urban growth is not conducive to it.
Combined with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees in the shade, there is little room left for running or walking in the open air.
A low level of physical exercise thus characterizes the Qatari population.
However, this is not without problems: the rates of overweight and obesity are particularly alarming.
According to the Qatar Bio Bank[1], almost 73% of Qataris and long-term expatriates are obese or overweight.
And 2 out of 10 inhabitants practice sport once a week.
A national sports day was declared in 2013 to encourage people to practice sports.
No major effect.
The inventory of licenses from sports federations confirms this observation.
In 2012, there were just over 20,000 licensees out of a total population of nearly 2.5 million.
A statistic that is certainly on the rise compared to 2008 (12,664) and 2003 (8,673) but which again does not hide the abyssal weakness of sports practice.
The Qatari state's involvement in sport is therefore not simply a matter of geopolitics.
It must both seduce the world and inspire Qataris.
To succeed, nothing is simple.
It is not enough “
to be present, nor even to organise, you have to win competitions
” (Gillon, 2006).
Failing to have a demographic reservoir of athletes likely to reach the high international level, naturalization has emerged as a solution.
In 1999, for the first time in its history, Qatar proceeded to the naturalization of 8 Bulgarian weightlifters against 1 million dollars[1].
A few years later, in 2003, Qatar again aroused criticism following the "
express
" naturalization of the athlete Stephen Cherono, Kenyan by birth and star of his discipline (3000m steeplechase) who became a Qatari a few weeks before the opening of the World Athletics Championships in Paris «
Saif Saaeed Shaheen
".
Admittedly, Qatar did not invent anything.
Naturalization is a common practice, almost institutionalized in the history of sport.
There is no shortage of examples from Alfredo Di Stefano to Wilson Kipketer, the multiple Kenyan 800m world champion naturalized Dane.
For handball, the rapid deadline for the 2015 world championship convinced Qatari decision-makers to use it.
Only two players out of the sixteen on the national team that makes it to the final are Qatari by birth.
Naturalization makes it possible to compensate for the lack of high-level athletes, most often by means of a check or a substantial lifetime annuity for the athletes and their coaches.
However, Qatar did not resort to this approach alone.
For football, a showcase of Qatar's investments in the world,
The Aspire Academy Panoramic
The country has not skimped on the means.
The Aspire Academy illustrates this.
A sporting tool intended to train the Qatari elite, the latter is integrated into an Olympic village of more than 250 hectares located near the heart of Doha: it is
the "Aspire Zone
», inaugurated in 2005 and whose cost is estimated at several hundred million.
Associated with the 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum, the Aspire Academy brings together a quantity of ultra-modern sports equipment and adjoins Aspetar, a clinic created in 2007, specializing in sports medicine and which aims to be a world reference.
By building this new sporting environment, Qatar's objective is simple: to shape the best young Qatari hopefuls and attract a highly qualified workforce from research and development, such as the best foreign coaches and specialists.
The establishment of partnerships with several clubs from foreign professional leagues such as La Masia, the FC Barcelona training center, is part of this logic.
Despite obvious limits, the first returns on investment have been felt.
The Qatari Olympic selection at the London Olympics sent its largest delegation with 12 athletes in four disciplines.
Two medals were gleaned through Nasser Al Attiyah in shooting and Mutaz Essa Barshim in the high jump competition.
Finally, the country has selected for the first time four women including the Qatari shooting champion, Bahiya Al Hamad, flag bearer of the delegation during the opening ceremony of the Games.
More recently, the victory of the men's football team at the 2019 Asian Cup of Nations has caused a lot of talk.
During the last Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the weightlifter from
With its sporting influence diplomacy, Qatar has decided to exist and do everything to win… without limit?
[1] Gillon, P., 2006, “
The sports policy of the Gulf Emirates: how to obtain international visibility?
»,
Insaniyat /
34 |
p 29-38.
[1] "
Qatar encourages the practice of sport to fight obesity
", Le Parisien, February 10, 2015
[1] The competition is watched by 1 billion viewers worldwide
[1] On the idea of niche specialization, see Jamal Abdullah's thesis.
Abdullah, J., 2011,
The foreign policy of the state of Qatar (1995-2010): contribution to understanding the contemporary foreign policy of a Gulf State
, thesis, University of Avignon and Pays de Vaucluse
[2] See the article by Champagne Jérôme taken from the dossier
“Qatar l'offensive Stratégique”, 2012, from the journal Géoéconomie
, n°62.
[3] Lardinoit, T. & Tribou, G., 2004, What is the specificity of sports management?
Revue française de gestion
, no 150, (3), 125-130.
https://www.cairn.info/revue-francaise-de-gestion-2004-3-page-125.htm.
[4]
Ravenel, L.. “A geomarketing approach to sport.
A geomarketing approach to sport", Annales de Géographie, vol.
680, no.
4, 2011, p.
383-404.
[1] The competition is watched by 1 billion viewers worldwide
[1] "
Qatar encourages the practice of sport to fight obesity
", Le Parisien, February 10, 2015
[1] Gillon, P., 2006, “
The sports policy of the Gulf Emirates: how to obtain international visibility?
»,
Insaniyat /
34 |
p 29-38.