August 21 – Having challenged the AFC and its president Shaikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khelaifi over the AFC’s coalition support alongside Concacaf and UEFA and their challenge to FIFA president Gianni Infantino, the Qatar FA has attempted to row back the intensity of their remarks and take the heat out of a situation that could leave them very isolated in world football.

Infantino has always been Qatar’s man, and the country has reciprocated. Infantino travels the world in a jet paid for by Qatar, he has a house in Qatar and even Qatari citizenship.

Such is his commitment to his Qatari benefactors that he chose in 2024 to attend the finals of a padel tournament in Doha, rather than the finals of FIFA’s own U17 Women’s World Cup in the Dominican Republic.

Qatar was always likely to attempt to keep their man in position in the event of a challenge, but to do so in a way that could damage the country’s reputation and the goodwill it has worked hard to build as a host of major sporting events, looked like an act of self-harm.

In press statement released yesterday, the Qatar Football Association attempted to defuse the situation saying: “This is not a question of personalities, nor of whether individual associations agree or disagree with the substance of any particular position. It is about ensuring that the voices of Member Associations are appropriately heard when Asian football speaks collectively.

“QFA raises these concerns in a constructive and brotherly spirit, with respect for the AFC and its leadership.”

But that is exactly what it didn’t do two days earlier when its president Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani sent an open letter to Shaikh Salman doubling down on his accusation that Shaikh Salman did not consult any member associations before joining with UEFA and Concacaf in opposition to Infantino’s continued leadership of FIFA.

“A procedural flaw of this nature cannot be cured, excused or obscured,” said Al-Thani. He then doubled down on his criticism of Salman, remarkably dismissing Salman’s consistent support of Qatar’s controversial 2022 World Cup hosting as his duty but not something they requested.

Of course there is no way that the QFA could have known who was consulted and who wasn’t, it only knows that it wasn’t, and due to its historical support of Infantino and the benefits Qatar have received from his presidency, there would have been little point in consulting them within the timescales being operated within and knowing where the Qataris stood.

Qatar has currently more to benefit from its AFC relationship than its FIFA one, but by taking the aggressive position it has it is looking increasingly detached and isolated. For a country that has re-engineered its social economy around hosting major sports, it could have made a very expensive reputational mistake.

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