DOHA: Qatar's dreams of hosting the World Cup in 2022 have been under threat almost from the moment the desert nation announced its ambitious plans. Some said it was just too hot, since the tournament would be held when temperatures typically reach well beyond 48 degrees C (118 degrees F). FIFA inspectors focused on its size, warning that holding a major tournament in such a tiny country would pose logistical problems. And then came the corruption allegations, in which a British newspaper alleged that Qatar colluded with 2018 bidder Spain-Portugal on a vote-swapping pact. FIFA cleared the two bidders of collusion, and now Qatar and its supporters have gone on the offensive. They argued their campaign is as strong as ever - despite the recent setbacks - and has a good chance of winning when FIFA announces the hosts for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments in Zurich Thursday. The other contenders for the 2022 bid are the United States, Australia, South Korea and Japan. “We're still very confident,” Hassan Al-Thawadi, the CEO of the Qatar bid committee, told the Associated Press. “If you look at the developments over the past few weeks, in particular the past month, it's been quite positive,” Al-Thawadi said. “The (FIFA) ethics committee came back and there is nothing on us. We are innocent.” Still, Qatar remains the dark horse among the 2022 bidders. It's the smallest nation bidding and is the only one that has not hosted either an Olympics or World Cup. At the same time, the Gulf country of 1.6 million has the money to put on a lavish World Cup. It already is promising to spend $42.9 billion on infrastructure upgrades and $4 billion to build nine stadiums and renovate three others. It also can make a strong argument for the legacy of its tournament, since it would be the first time the event was held in the Middle East. In its evaluation of the bid released last week, FIFA presented a mixed review. Inspectors saw the merits of holding the tournament in a concentrated area - no stadium would be more than an hour apart - and praised the Gulf nation for its promise to hold a carbon neutral tournament and dismantle and send sections of the stadiums to poor nations. But it also concluded that Qatar's vision of a compact World Cup would pose “logistical and operational challenges” in terms of moving the hundreds of thousands of people to and from the venues. It also raised an alarm about the hot weather and the largely untested solutions the country is proposing to combat the arid conditions.
