Football in 2011. Football is by far the most popular sport in Qatar and is played and supported by locals and expatriates alike. The country has two tiers of domestic professional football leagues. The top tier, known as the
Qatar Stars League, has undergone numerous expansions in the last several years. In 2009, the league expanded from ten to twelve clubs, and again expanded by two clubs in May 2013, bringing the total number of teams in the first division to fourteen. Attendance at QSL matches ranges between 2,000 and 10,000, depending on the popularity of the teams. In a 2014 survey conducted by Qatari government ministries and departments, 65% of the 1,079 respondents indicated that they did not attend a football match in the previous league season.
Al Sadd is the most successful sports club in the country, and has won the
continental club competition on two occasions. Former
Real Madrid and
Spain striker
Raúl played for Al Sadd between 2012 and 2014, and in July 2015 the club announced the signing of former
FC Barcelona and Spain playmaker
Xavi. In May 2019, Xavi was appointed the head coach of the club following his retirement at the end of the 2018–19 season. Other famous footballers to play in Qatar include
Pep Guardiola,
Gabriel Batistuta,
Fernando Hierro,
Ronald de Boer,
Santi Cazorla and
Marco Verratti. The
Qatari national football team have won the
Arabian Gulf Cup three times and twice as hosts, first in 1992 and again in 2004 and 2015. The youth team also reached the final of the
1981 FIFA World Youth Championship, where they lost 4–0 to West Germany in the final. Qatar hosted the
AFC Asian Cup in
1988,
2011 and
2023. Qatar would successfully retain their title on home soil, following a 3–1 victory against
Jordan in the
2023 final held in
Lusail. In June 2019, FIFA awarded Qatar the rights to host the
2019 and
2020 FIFA Club World Cup. On 21 December 2019, Qatar concluded the Club World Cup, which was being looked at as a benchmark for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. However, the tournament was announced as one of the most successful editions in history by Secretary-General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC), Hassan al-Thawadi.
2022 FIFA World Cup On 2 December 2010, Qatar won their bid to host the
2022 FIFA World Cup. Beating rival bids from Australia, the United States,
South Korea, and Japan, FIFA stated that the Qatari bid ran on a platform of bringing the World Cup to the only part of the world previously excluded from hosting it, donating parts of stadia to under-developed countries in Africa and Asia after the competition finishes, and allowing fans to watch multiple matches in one day and reduce travel expenses by being the most compact tournament to date. The local organising committee, the Supreme Committee for Development and Legacy, is planning to build nine new stadiums and expand three existing stadiums for this event. The first stadium to be completed will be the
Khalifa International Stadium, due in 2016. Qatar's winning bid for the 2022 World Cup was greeted enthusiastically in the Arab world as it was the first time a country in the
Middle East or
North Africa had been selected to host the tournament. The tournament is expected to generate thousands of jobs, with extensive infrastructure required to prepare the country to host the world's biggest sports games. Official Qatari sources have estimated that the country will spend US$138 billion, which will include new motorways, a new deep-water port, a metro system as well as nine stadia and an extensive fan zone. As of summer 2015, major contracts have been awarded to several international companies, including
Foster and Partners,
WS Atkins,
Arup Associates, and
Pascall+Watson. In addition to the awarding of contracts to international companies, the Supreme Committee announced its intention to support entrepreneurs and
small and medium-sized enterprises in the region through the Challenge 22 competition. Held for the first time in June 2015, the competition requires anyone inhabiting a
GCC country to submit a business plan. Finalists are invited to
Doha for two days of intense coaching, before pitching to judges and winning cash and incubation prizes. To deliver these projects on time the economy and population are expected to double between 2014 and 2022, with the total number of inhabitants due to exceed four million. The need for new housing has given a boost to the construction and real estate sectors, with growth expected to be 9.5 percent according to the
Qatar Statistics Authority. The emblem for the 2022 FIFA World Cup was revealed in Doha on September 3, 2019. Since the 2022 FIFA would be the first to be played in winter, the emblem depicts a woolen shawl and is inspired by the Arab culture. Ahead of the World Cup, the
United States Men's National Soccer Team (USMNT) announced to hold a training camp in Doha in January 2020. Players like
Gyasi Zardes,
Jordan Morris,
Sebastian Lletget and
Aaron Long have been invited to join the camp at Qatar's
Aspire Academy. In October 2021,
David Beckham signed a $277 million (£150m) deal with Qatar. Beckham signed a ten-year deal with Qatar to be the face of the Qatar World Cup in 2022. during the opening match of the 2022 FIFA World Cup
Argentina were crowned the champions after winning
the final against the
title holder France 4–2 on penalties following a 3–3 draw after extra time. It was Argentina's third title and their first since
1986, as well as being the first nation from outside of Europe to win the tournament since
2002.
Controversies Shortly after the awarding of the
2022 FIFA World Cup to Qatar, the bid was embroiled in controversy, including allegations of bribery. European football associations have also objected to the 2022 World Cup being held in Qatar for a variety of reasons, including the impact of high temperatures on players' fitness, to the disruption it might cause in European domestic league calendars should the event be rescheduled to take place during winter. In March 2015,
FIFA and Qatar agreed that the competition would be held in November and December 2022. Qatar authorities have also sought to improve the situation by commissioning
British law firm
DLA Piper to undertake a review of conditions in 2012. Following the recommendations made,
Qatar Foundation created the Migrant Workers Welfare Charter which applies minimum requirements to the recruitment, living and working conditions, as well as the general treatment of workers engaged in construction and other projects. The mandatory standards will be incorporated into agreements between Qatar Foundation and all its contractors, who are required to comply with the requirements and rules. Contractors and sub-contractors found to be violating the regulations have been blacklisted from future tenders.
Labour rights have slowly been improving since the review; for example, in August 2015, Qatar announced it would launch a new electronic salary system to guarantee safe and punctual payments directly into workers' bank accounts. Companies that fail to pay their workers on time will be fined and the country maintains that prison sentences could even be handed out. Government ministers also predict that changes to the country's
kafala system will be announced later in 2015. In October 2019, Qatari authorities have taken a significant step towards protecting migrant workers. According to the reports the reforms include minimum thresholds for wage, food, and accommodation, totaling QR 1,800. In addition, a Minimum Wage Commission was established to monitor its impact. Between September 2020 and March 2022, over 300,000 workers (including 7,000 domestic workers) changed their jobs. The Worker’s Support and Insurance Fund, established in 2019, has disbursed QAR 358,000,000 (nearly USD 100m) to over 35,000 workers, in March 2022. A non-discriminatory minimum wage came into force in March 2021, and 280,000 workers, or 13% of the workforce received a wage rise. The number of complaints on the online platform was nearly 25,000 in 2021, compared to 11,000 in the previous year. In March 2022, 228 workers’ representatives were elected to represent almost 40,000 employees in 37 enterprises.
Basketball Basketball is an increasingly popular sport in Qatar. The sport is administered by the Qatar Basketball Federation (QBF). The QBF was established in 1964, but was only admitted into the
FIBA Asia and the Organizing Committee of the
GCC in 1979. Qatar's first basketball championship came in the 1995 GCC Youth Championship. The
national basketball team won back-to-back bronze medals in the 2003 and 2005 editions of the
Asian Basketball Championship and qualified for the
FIBA Basketball World Cup for the first time in
2006 held in Japan. Qatar will host the
2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup making Qatar the first FIBA Basketball World Cup in the Middle East or North Africa region. Club teams compete in the
Qatari Basketball League, the top domestic basketball league in the country. Qatar's first women's basketball league was launched in 2012. On 28 April 2023, during a central board meeting in
Manila, FIBA announced that Qatar will host the upcoming
2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup. The 2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup will be the 20th tournament of the
FIBA Basketball World Cup for men's national basketball teams. The tournament will be the third to feature 32 teams. It will be the first FIBA Basketball World Cup to be held in the
Arab world, and the third straight to be held in Asia after the
2019 tournament in
China and the
2023 edition co-hosted by the
Philippines,
Japan, and
Indonesia. Qatar will also be the second Muslim country to host after the
2010 edition in
Turkey.
Beach volleyball Qatar featured a men's national team in
beach volleyball that competed at the
2018–2020 AVC Beach Volleyball Continental Cup.
Cricket Cricket is the second most popular sport in Qatar, albeit one that the local citizens play very little. Despite that, massive numbers of migrant workers and residents from South Asia and the
Indian subcontinent play the game that is a national pastime in their countries of origin. Since the subcontinent accounts for nearly half the residents in Qatar, the game is rapidly picking up its pace. Although the local Qatar national team isn't as popular, cricket tournaments such as the
ICC World Cup and the
ICC World Twenty20 which exclude Qatar but include nations that account for most of the expatriates in the country are one of the most viewed sporting events in the country. The
Qatar Cricket Association (QCA) is set to host the country's first T10 League by the end of 2019.
Futsal Futsal became an officially sanctioned sport in 2007, when the fully professional
Qatar Futsal League was established. There are two futsal tournaments; the QFA Futsal Cup and the Open Cup, which was inaugurated in 2010. Futsal is overseen by a department of the
Qatar Football Association. A women's league was launched in 2009 under the auspices of the Women's Sports Committee.
Handball final, Qatar vs France
Handball is a very popular
team sport in Qatar. The
Qatar men's national handball team qualified for the
IHF World Men's Handball Championship on four occasions, and automatically qualified for a fifth as host. Qatar has won the
Asian Men's Handball Championship title four times in a row in 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020. ==Individual sports==