Thailand's Worawi explains why he backed Qatar's bid to host World Cup

Qatar was chosen by members of Fifa’s executive committee in 2010 — now known as Fifa Council — in a controversial and pathbreaking move. One of the members voting for Qatar's bid in the executive committee was Worawi Makudi from Thailand.

The Nation spoke to Worawi, who remains an honorary member of football's governing body, and continues to be invited to every major Fifa event.

The former president of the Football Association of Thailand explained to the Nation how Fifa members select the host of the World Cup.

Qatar was a unique case in the history of the World Cup 2022. The country became the first country from the Middle East to host football’s biggest event. There were two concessions made in the case of Qatar. The country has never qualified for the World Cup finals, and the competition was shifted to winter because the heat in Qatar’s summer would be unbearable for the players and spectators.

Worawi explained that there are no concrete conditions for choosing the host nation and it depended on the readiness of the applicant, so the World Cup could be held in every part of the world.

Speaking about Qatar’s case, Worawi argued:“These are not concrete conditions in selecting a host because going by those conditions, some countries might never get the right to bid to be World Cup host.”

“I have to thank every member for always choosing the right host, not only Qatar, but also South Korea and Japan in 2002, or Germany in 2006, as they were all great World Cups,” says Worawi.

“Do you know that before Germany was chosen, South Africa was the front-runner in 2006? Germany won a close race by only one vote (12-11)," he reveals.

“The reason that the members chose Germany was because it was perceived as more ready to stage the event, and Germany did host a great World Cup in 2006. We saw that South Africa was not ready at that point, so we chose them four years later after it was ready, and South Africa did organise a great World Cup,” says Worawi.

“After that, the World Cup moved to Brazil in 2014. It was already the country of football so it organised a great World Cup.”

“After that, we chose the hosts simultaneously for two World Cups — 2018 in Russia and 2022 in Qatar — because we did not want the lobbying to be chaotic.

“I always praise members for choosing the right host, like 2018 was the correct moment for Russia.”

Explaining the choice of Qatar, he said, “Some people might have disagreed initially with choosing Qatar, but now everyone says, ‘Wow! Qatar did the best.' When Fifa inspects a country’s readiness, it faces some problems but the World Cup in Qatar had no problems at all.”

When asked about the reason he voted for Qatar, Worawi said: “I, as a Fifa member and Asian person, must choose a country from Asia.”

“However, I always think that no matter what the size of a country, we must give them an equal chance and I was thinking at that moment that Qatar had the potential to organise the World Cup. They prepared stadiums and got everything ready for the 2022 World Cup within 12 years of being selected.

“We did not consider that it got rich from gas or oil, but it is passionate about every sport, especially football. Qatar built Aspire, which is the No. 1 sports institution and academy in the world.

“With the passion for football in Qatar, it was my duty as an Asian to support Qatar,” he added.

Argentina won the World Cup hosted by Qatar from November 20 to December 18, beating France on penalties in the final.

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