December 21st, 2016, Parc de Princes. PSG at home to Lorient in torrential rain. A guest of the club in the dry VIP lounge I was introduced to a Qatari royal who told me they liked my writing and would I be interested in a media gig. Was I flattered, for sure. I had just been tramping about side streets of Paris gathering info on doping, great sightseeing I know, so this offer was a bit more appealing. I’d just finished work with a biotech company and hadn’t a regular wage. Working on World Cup projects and doing media work was great but I didn’t have the stability I wanted. This, this was pretty good. By half-time Edinson Cavani-led PSG were 2 up and the 40,000-plus fans were happy. I’d a glass of wine in my hand when my friend and the Qatari guy came back to me.
They offered a commission: go all-expense paid to Qatar in January and write a “Behind the Scenes” story on World Cup preparations. They said I’d have a bye-line (my name on the article) and it’d go out in major dailies. The Qatari said he would guarantee that I’d have work, at least, in Al Jazeera and a contract for “some years.” At dinner in the James Joyce pub that night I contemplated the offer. They would pay for me and my then partner to fly to Doha, stay for a week, write up a story and give me a multi-year contract. Early the following morning I met the fixer friend for coffee at the Brasserie Pastis near Saint-Augustin Metro.
$5,000 for the article
$4,000 per month retainer (bonuses to be discussed later)
Contract to December 31st 2022
That New Year’s Eve I sat in Mulhuddart watching Russia Today cover the New Year in Moscow. My mind was in December 31st, 2014, Voronezh Oblast and looking in the mirror an hour before midnight. I promised myself that I’d return fully to sports, media and make myself THE go to guy for the World Cup in 2018. I would finish what I started in 2009. At times I could have acccelerated that, though instead I stuck to what I believed was right. I left our living room just as someone flicked over to CNN and I saw my friend Matthew Chance talk about what to expect in the coming year as Russia built towards the World Cup. I put on my coat, walked to the top of the garden and called my friend in Paris.
The journey back to Moscow deserves an article of its own, but 2017 changed the direction of my life and career. Not for a second did I think that turning down the Qatari offer was a mistake. I wrote about it, spoke about it and was proud that I stuck to my guns. I’d asked at the Pastis if behind the scenes meant, everywhere. That I could write and record everything. He had to check and that evening as I was having my Camembert thrown into the garbage at Beauvais Airport, he called to say yes, behind the scenes was everywhere, but there were “guidelines” to what would be published. I considered everything for 9 days and refused. I then found out an English journo took up the offer, was published in major dailies and continues to serve 2 masters - his newspaper in England and a Qatari agency.
The bile poured on Qatar is unlike anything I have ever known. A scant 9 years after an illegal invasion of Iraq and 1 million dead men, women and children, London hosted the Olympics in 2012 and was rightly lauded for it. 4 years earlier Beijing received some criticism, but social media and net access were still growing. The 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympics in Brazil were torn apart by European and Anglo-North American media. Tokyo ‘20, also, was grilled but less so because of covid. We know what happened with Sochi in 2014 and how that year deteriorated with a coup in Kiev, Crimea and the start of the Ukrainian Civil War. Pyeongyang ‘18 was lightly ridiculed but Beijing ‘22 got blasted with Uyghurs, covid and democracy. Russia’s FIFA World Cup in 2018 almost didn’t happen and I don’t need to revisit the madness right up until kick off.
Yet with Qatar, from Roy Keane’s double-face to BBC hypocrisy during the Opening Ceremony to protests in Paris and a non-stop free-for-all on Elon Musk’s Twitter - we only hear only one voice. We don’t hear that voice bring up a brilliant WaPo article on US war crimes in the region nor do we ask why fans and teams from outside the US, Canada, Australia and parts of Europe are not outraged? My friend and colleague Andrew Flint put some context on it in a terrific article and on Sunday’s Capital Sports 3.0 we heard from Swedish-Iranian Nima Tavallaey Roodsari. There cannot always be one, single, monotoned, monobrained side of the story. When fans screeched about lack of alcohol in Qatar, media leapt on it. Maybe because (from personal experience) the media heads love a beer or party. I am watching matches and trying to enjoy them. Trying because to enjoy them means I spit on the graves of dead Nepalis. Trying because I don’t like football. Trying because I see those who ran down Qatar now out there earning and enjoying the event. I am trying to enjoy it but Nima’s point that the Qatar was created by Dr. Frankenstein, yet we expect the monster to react to criticism and virtue signalling and let the bad Doctor off the hook, makes me angry. So I concluded:
If you don’t believe the World Cup should be in Qatar - Don’t go! Don’t watch! Don’t read! Don’t buy any products of sponsors who deal with it!
If you are so angry about not being allowed wear a One Love arm band - wear it and to hell with the consequences.
If worker’s rights are so important for you - start at home and work out.
Finally, if you believe that you are unable to enjoy a sports event without alcohol, the problem isn’t Qatar - it’s you!
Alan you are a man of integrity . BBC and ITV dont have your integrity they chase the money Neville has shamed his soul by joining ITV. Alan you will blessed by not selling your soul
It can be a very blurred line between finances and morals, can't it? Had you accepted that offer, it would have been hard to criticise Qatar, and yet also hard to blame you for taking the money in the first place. As always boss, brilliant insight into a side so few (care to) see