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[lollaerd]

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar-sport/162633-bin-hammam-launches-appeal-against-fifa-ban.html

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar-sport/162632-bin-hammam-corruption-case-timeline-.html

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar-sport/162614-former-afc-chief-appeals-lifetime-ban.html

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/international-sport/161671-corruption-body-calls-for-more-change-in-fifa.html

[wilberforce]

Amazing things going on here in sports. I arrived too late to attend the big Egypt-Brazil game the other night. So many sports events, you just can't keep up. Qatar sure is the sports capital of the Arab world. I think it's great!! It's good to know that the country is investing so much money in sport. Aspire Zone is a great place - love the park!

Good luck with the world cup. I am definitely coming back in 2022 -with my son!

[wilberforce]

Another National Holiday - Sports Day - wow!

[wilberforce]

Qatar to mark national day of sports Wednesday, 07 December 2011 06:38


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DOHA: Qatar will observe �National Sports Day� in February every year, it was announced by the Heir Apparent, H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in a decree issued yesterday.The second Tuesday of February every year will be celebrated as the �National Sports Day,� the decree said. It will be a national holiday, probably the only country to mark a day for sports.The decision stipulates that ministries, government departments and public sector institutions as well as other organisations including the private sector, will organise sports activities on the day for their employees.The move comes following Qatar�s widely acclaimed desire to make sport a way of life in the country. It is expected that the move will usher in a new era of sport activities, with a particular emphasis on young kids.

It is worth mentioning that Qatar is the only country that runs a widely-followed �Schools Olympic Programme,� aimed at encouraging schoolchildren to take up sports as a healthy way of life.The �Schools Olympic Programme� organises events for schoolchildren in sport beats like baskteball, tennis, volleyball, football and athletics to name a few.
The holiday aims to create awareness about sports and its health benefits. With this decision, the government hopes to launch a drive that will educate people about the important role of sports in their individual and social lives.Doha, which hosted the 2006 Asian Games, is aiming to bring the Olympic Games to the Middle East for the first time in 2020. Qatar, where football remains the number one sport, will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup finals.

Gas-rich Qatar has earmarked billions of dollars to improve its sport infrastructure that still boasts some of the finest sports facilities in the world. The Aspire Academy - based close to the stat-of-the-art Khalifa Stadium - is the world�s largest indoor sports facility.Starting this week, Doha will bring together thousands of athletes and officials for two-week Arab Games Doha sports extravaganza.With sports being its vehicle to the future, Doha remains one of the most favoured destinations for top world sport stars.Sheikh Tamim, who is also the chairperson of the Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC), is a member of the IOC Executive Committee. A number of Qataris head world�s governing sports bodies. Nasser bin Khalifa Al Attiyah is the vice president of FIM, the world governing body in bike racing.

THE PENINSULA

[mesquite]

[blastermill]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/sports/soccer/with-paris-saint-germain-qatar-is-a-player-in-french-sports.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y


http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/qatar-2022-9-years-goes-fast/

[battleshipb_b]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/sports/soccer/with-paris-saint-germain-qatar-is-a-player-in-french-sports.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/sports/soccer/06iht-soccer06.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y&_r=0

A World Cup Problem That Won't Go Away

LONDON � Even FIFA admits that there was corruption inside its ruling executive committee at the time when future World Cup destinations were being decided. Reforms, we are constantly told, are in the pipeline.
Leaving that aside, vital health and practicality issues relating to the 2022 summer event in Qatar will not go away.Last weekend, Michel Platini, who played in major soccer tournaments and now organizes them, stirred the pot. �I am in favor of Qatar under two conditions,� he said. �Because of the heat, the World Cup will need to be held in the winter. With over 40 degrees, playing football is impossible, and for the fans it would be unbearable,� he said, referring to temperatures that reach upward of 104 Fahrenheit. Platini also said: �The neighboring countries must be included so that the World Cup is staged throughout the entire region.�Breathtaking. One of the finest players of his time, now Europe�s leading soccer administrator and a vice president of FIFA, Platini gave his vote to Qatar when the bidding was concluded in December 2010. Yet today, he has doubts and conditions.
His concern over player safety should have been aired before the tournament was awarded. Indeed, it should be on FIFA�s more urgent agenda right now, because there are matches that are scheduled to kick off in the midday heat at some tropical venues during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Nobody doubts the priorities. Television bankrolls the 32-nation, 64-game tournament, and the matches are timed for the convenience of a global television audience. But is it inconvenient to remind the committeemen of Marc-Vivien Fo�? Fo� was a high-energy Cameroonian star who collapsed and died of heart failure during FIFA�s Confederations Cup 10 years ago. Autopsies revealed that the 28-year-old player had a hereditary cardiac defect, and that the afternoon heat in Lyon might have exacerbated his condition. Lyon is not Brazil, never mind Qatar in midsummer. FIFA�s medical officers did act conscionably after Fo�s demise. They have increased the medical screening and the life-saving equipment at stadiums around the world. Yet at least a dozen professional players have dropped dead since 2003, in different parts of the world and in various climates. The FIFA members who overwhelmingly approved of Qatar were reassured by a statement from the oil-rich state that �each of the five stadiums will harness the power of the sun�s rays to provide a cool environment for players and fans by converting solar energy into electricity that will then be used to cool both fans and players at the stadiums.� Qatar has the money to make that science work, if anything can.
But Platini�s latent doubts appear not to have been debated within FIFA. �It is strange that we are talking and talking about this issue,� said the FIFA general secretary J�r�me Valcke in response to Platini�s statements, �when we know that the people who have to ask the first question is Qatar itself.� �There again,� Valcke added, �maybe the FIFA executive committee will say based on medical reports or whatever we really have to look at playing the World Cup not in summer, but in winter.� Time is ticking. Qatar has never deviated from the summer schedule for the 2022 World Cup, and it knows that it would face almighty opposition from the world�s domestic leagues were it to request a switch to the winter months.
The English Premier League, for one, would oppose any attempt to move or interrupt its season. So would many of the leading clubs, which play in the Champions League, which financially empowers Platini�s UEFA organization.
I have a suggestion, though I do not imagine it carrying any vote from FIFA or Qatar. Let the tournament be moved to the safest time possible in that country, but allow the clubs to decide which players they release to participate in it. That, to be sure, would kill the World Cup. However, winter is the time when most of the world�s best players earn their fortunes with European teams. The clubs own their registrations and pay their salaries but, up to now, FIFA stipulates that priority is given to its moneymaking tournaments � not just the World Cup. In addition, FIFA mandates not just that players be released for the events, but that they also be given time to acclimate and prepare.
That is because FIFA gets its mandate from the national associations, not the clubs. It is ultimately about voting, again, because the associations decide who leads FIFA as its president. And their votes usually follow the money that is doled out from the proceeds of World Cups. In all of this (and in politics, too), the power that has enriched FIFA down the years has revolved around its ability to make peace between the national associations and the clubs. Europe is the mecca for club players, but other leagues in Asia or in the Americas are not in the same seasons as Europe. This, and the call on players for national team duty, inevitably means that most coveted players are already overstretched They play virtually year-round. And the toll on their bodies, maybe on their hearts, needs more microscopic investigation than they are given. Nevertheless, Platini advocates now switching the Qatar World Cup for the safety of his players and the well-being of the fans, too. And FIFA responds by effectively saying it is up to Qatar to move the whole show out of kilter to the rest of the world game.Someone, somewhere has to take a lead. But most of the elderly gentlemen who voted in Zurich for Qatar 2022 will not be in office, and may not be alive, when it takes place.
A version of this article appeared in print on March 6, 2013, in The International Herald Tribune.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/new-wave-of-i-p-o-s-in-qatar-appears-ambitious/