Today is the World Cup final, when Argentina play France. This is the last of 29 posts - one for each day of the World Cup.
According to Jacob Steinberg in The Guardian, opinion on Qatar may have changed during the tournament although others will disagree.
Including Barney Ronay in the same issue of the paper.
From the piece:
"The fact is death and suffering were the inevitable collateral to this project from the moment Sepp Blatter read out the word “Qatar” in that weirdly strangled upbeat tone, crowded on his own stage by glad-handing power-brokers; and feeling, perhaps, through the lineups and posed smiles, that shadow already at his back, just out of shot, scythe clanking happily."
It includes a link to the report from the evaluators' when they visited Qatar ahead of the awarding of the games, pointing out some of the work that was needed. The reports on other venues are presumably available and might provide some useful context for creating some sort of activity ahead of a future World Cup bid - perhaps as an activity assessing a number of African nations for their readiness to host e.g. Cape Town, Cairo, Lagos and Nairobi.
A few final things - if you use the original edition of the OCR B GCSE Geography textbook I co-wrote with Jo Coles, Jo Payne and Simon Ross, you will find two city case studies. One is Leeds, and the other is a comparable city in Argentina.
The city is called Rosario and is the birthplace of Lionel Messi, who gets a mention in the chapter.
And by the way, the 2nd edition of the OCR B GCSE Geography textbook can still be purchased here. It's a cracker!
Will there now be an increased number of visitors to Qatar, partly on the back of David Beckham's involvement in the promotional campaign, showing the location of the stadium for today's final.
Download the official tourist map here (PDF download)
A YouTube channel here as well.
A map of the stadia here from a travel company.
I hope these posts have been of interest...
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