Promoting Terror or Sport? The Case of Qatar’s International Image

Hosting Sport Events to Improve a Country’s Image: Does It Really Work?

Several governments have stated that the strategy of hosting megasport events to promote a positive international image is highly effective. Thus, for example, the Sydney Olympics in 2000 branded Australia as a “sporting nation” and, according to the Australian Tourist Commission (2001), the successful Olympics “accelerated development of Brand Australia by 10 years” (p. 3). In a similar manner, the United Kingdom bid to host the London 2012 Olympic Games following a Foreign and Commonwealth Office report of the United Kingdom’s reputation worldwide, which stated that “ . . . the UK was seen as fair, innovative, diverse, confident and stylish [but also] arrogant, stuffy, old-fashioned and cold” (House of Commons, 2006, para. 20). In order to combat this image and project an image of a vibrant, dynamic country, the United Kingdom invested tremendous efforts to win the bid to host the 2012 World Cup. Indeed, a comprehensive study that assessed the United Kingdom’s success in repairing its image by hosting the London Olympic Games, based on international media outputs before, during, and after the games, concluded that the United Kingdom dispelled negative stereotypes against it to quite an extent, and that the Olympics assisted in branding the United Kingdom as a vibrant and dynamic nation (Grix & Houlihan, 2013). Other cases have been recorded in which hosting sport events improved the image of countries with an image problem. For example, Germany’s hosting of the 2006 World Cup is considered part of a highly successful campaign to change the country’s reputation as the force behind the Holocaust and the two world wars. Analyses confirm that, during and after the 2006 World Cup in Munich, the international media has indeed presented Germany as a force for good in the world (Grix & Houlihan, 2013).

Occasionally, however, a state’s image may actually suffer despite its sponsorship of a global sporting event. Notably, several non-Western countries with a problematic image, which hoped to improve their image by hosting megasport events, damaged their international image further by inadvertently directing the world’s attention to their (mis)deeds during the preparations for the games and throughout the games. Thus, alleged breaches of human rights of laborers working on the stadiums for the games (as was the case in Beijing 2008) and challenges regarding the environmental conditions in the facilities hosting the games (i.e., air and water pollution) can cause major damage to the host country’s image.

For example, during China’s hosting of the 2008 Summer Olympics, world media widely covered protesters near the stadiums marching with demands to China to free Tibet as well as allegations by environmental organizations concerning air pollution in the city of Beijing and in neighboring areas. Unsurprisingly, analysis of China’s image in world polls after the games showed that the games did not improve China’s global image (Manzenreiter, 2010). In a similar manner, Russia’s hosting of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games resulted in damage to Russia’s international image when President Putin linked gay groups with pedophilia (Lally, 2014) and assured that gay visitors would be safe if they do not try to seduce minors. These allegations encountered fierce criticism: Specifically, 2 days before the games, gay rights activists held a day of protests against the Russian government in 19 cities around the world, seeking to persuade Western sponsors of the Sochi Games to speak out against Russia’s controversial comments on homosexuality. These protests attracted massive international media coverage and undoubtedly undermined Russia’s efforts to promote its national image by hosting the games. As Rio de Janeiro prepares to host the Summer Olympics in 2016, concerns that the Olympic site for rowing and canoeing competitions and venues for other aquatic events are polluted and are dangerous to athletes and are causing embarrassment to the Brazil government (Osborn, 2015).

Arguably, when a country sets out to improve its image by hosting a megasport event, it draws attention to its actions: Such attention may enhance its image—as in the cases of Australia, the United Kingdom, and Germany—but may also be counterproductive, as illustrated in China’s and Russia’s failed attempts to promote an image of liberal countries by hosting international games.

Qatar’s case is no less interesting than Russia, China, or Brazil, as Qatar has become a major world player in the sport hosting arena in the past decade, hosting no less than 89 major sport events in 2015 alone while concurrently being accused of being a major sponsor of terror organizations (Mandick, 2015). The present study aims to make a unique contribution by offering a pioneering analysis of a country’s image management strategy and efforts to improve its terror-funding image by hosting a high-profile global sport event.

Promoting Terror, Sport, or Both?

In recent years, Qatar has supplied finances, arms, logistic, and medical aid to various Islamist groups operating in the Arab region. In 2013, President Barack Obama cautioned Emir Sheikh Hamad al-Thani that Qatar needed to impose tighter restrictions on weapons proliferation to prevent advanced weaponry from falling into the hands of the al-Nusrah Front (Mazzetti, Chivers, & Schmitt, 2013). The Financial Times estimates that Qatar has exhausted an estimated sum of between $1 billion and $3 billion providing arms and funds to the Syrian rebellion (Khalaf & Fielding-Smith, 2013), specifically to the al-Nusrah Front, which was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government in December 2012. In several incidents, leading Qatari figures were caught transferring money to terror organizations, including Al-Qaeda branches worldwide. In one famous incident, Abd al-Rahman al-Nu’aymi, professor of history at Qatar University, president of the Qatar Football Association, a founding member of the Sheik Eid bin Mohammad Al-Thani Charitable Foundation, a board member of a Qatari bank, and advisor to the Qatari Emir on charitable donations, was designated a global terrorist by the U.S. Treasury Department on December 18, 2013 after he reportedly oversaw the transfer of over $2 million per month to Al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2012 (U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2013).

In addition, Qatar was accused of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood—an organization that various governments including Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates consider a terror organization—during the so-called Arab Spring. Najeeb al-Nuaimi, a former Qatari Justice Minister, stated in 2013 that the Emirate sees the Muslim Brotherhood as “the political future of the Arab world” (Hammond, 2013), and thus, it believes that the Muslim Brotherhood is an asset worth investing in, with the hope of cementing alliances with future governments. Two months after Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi rose to power in Egypt, Qatar granted Egypt a $2 billion loan (Associated Press, 2012), followed by an additional $2 billion deposited in Egypt’s central bank in January 2013 (Saleh & Werr, 2013).

Furthermore, Qatar has often been put on the defensive as a supporter of the Islamic State (ISIS), and as the target of Western leaders’ accusations that the country is one of the main backers of ISIS. Famously, German Development Minister Gerd Mueller was quoted as saying, “You have to ask who is arming, who is financing ISIS troops. The keyword there is Qatar—and how do we deal with these people and states politically?” (Martin, Bakr, & McDowall, 2014). It is therefore not surprising that Qatar was shortly afterward labeled a “Club Med for terrorists” in a The New York Times op-ed (Prosor, 2014).

In an attempt to repair its image as a terror-sponsoring state, Qatar assumed an active role in efforts to resolve national and regional disputes in many parts of the Arab world, including Egypt, Iran, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. Qatar capitalizes on its image as a small and neutral state in order to justify its status as a legitimate impartial mediator, and often uses monetary inducements to entice delegates to the negotiating table. Famously, Qatar secured the liberation of U.S. journalist Peter Theo Curtis, who had been held captive by al-Nusra Front for nearly 2 years. During the same period, Qatar hosted five Taliban prisoners who were exchanged by the United States for a captured American soldier Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, and negotiated the release from Syria of several Greek Orthodox nuns for sums ranging between $4 million and $50 million, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation (2014).

At the same time, the Qatari government attempts to improve its international image by sponsoring sport events and teams through investments by the state-owned Qatari Sport Investments. Qatar is responsible for founding the Aspire Academy, training the world’s most talented young football players, and attracting the attention of some of the most prestigious clubs from all around the world. In 2011, Qatari Sport Investments acquired a majority holding in France’s most successful soccer team, Paris Saint-Germain FC, and invested ample funds to help them achieve high-level success internationally. Another famous acquisition is the high-profile partnership with FC Barcelona, which allowed Qatari-owned Qatar Airways to become the first sponsor of the Barcelona shirt, also known for its worldwide popularity as “the world’s most prestigious advertising space” (Conn, 2013).

Hence, this study sets to examine whether Qatar’s extensive attempts to improve its problematic image through sport-related activities have been successful. Our hypotheses, therefore, are as follows:

Our third hypothesis relates to the volume of coverage of sport versus terror, which we hypothesized will be equal, since both themes are constantly at the top of the global news agenda. Sport has been at the top of the news agenda for many decades, while terrorism increasingly has dominated major headlines since the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent “war on terror.”

Method

To test the study’s hypotheses, a content analysis was conducted on news articles concerning Qatari affairs that appeared on the online versions of three international news networks: CNN, SKY NEWS, and ITV. A sample of 721 news articles was collected using a search for the word “Qatar” on the news networks’ online search engines. The search was conducted on articles posted on the websites of these networks between August 20, 2013 (during a period when Qatar was accused of sponsoring terrorist groups in Syria) and December 31, 2014. The date December 31, 2014 was selected arbitrarily as the end of the analysis period since it is the last day of the following year. The sample includes 476 articles appeared on CNN, 96 on ITV, and 149 on Sky News websites. Of these, 272 articles dealt specifically with sport affairs: 172 articles on CNN, 50 articles on ITV, and 50 on Sky News. A similar number, 263 articles, mentioned Qatari links to terrorist groups in the Middle East: 169 on CNN, 39 on ITV, and 55 on Sky News.

The articles, as noted, were retrieved from the websites’ archives. This method was used for all sources with the exception of Sky News, where the results for the year 2013 were not available. Therefore, the sampled articles for Sky News were collected using the Lexis-Nexis database.

Sentiment toward Qatar in the articles was determined according to the dominant tone that appears in the content, such that the articles were coded on a 3-point scale as positive, neutral, or negative. Positive-tone articles are those that describe events or issues involving Qatar in a supportive manner in over 75% of the article, hence contributing to Qatar’s image. Neutral articles are either informative in nature, or offer both positive and negative perspectives on the matter. Negative articles are critical in their approach to Qatar in over 75% of the article.

In addition to sentiment analysis, articles were also coded for subject matter, relevancy, mention of specific entities (e.g., events, organizations, or groups), and to provide a better perspective, for attribution of blame in sport-related affairs and terror-related incidents. Thus, for example, in articles regarding allegations of Qataris bribery in the bid for the 2022 World Cup tender, we examined whether articles describe Qatar, FIFA, or other organizations as the main culprit behind the bribery. In articles on terror, we noted the terror groups mentioned with respect to Qatar.

The articles were coded by three coders, all native English speakers who underwent training. A reliability test based on a random sample of 120 articles showed a high level of intercoder agreement (Kappa coefficient above .877).

All three international news networks selected for the analysis have an international audience and fall within the category of English-speaking international news networks broadcasting 24/7. CNN, launched in 1980 as the first private international news channel, is the most well-known of the three networks examined. The study analyzes CNN International (CNNI), which is carried on a variety of TV platforms across the world, and (unlike CNN U.S.) is mostly broadcast from studios outside the United States, including London, Hong Kong, and Abu Dhabi. CNNI is available in most countries, and its international reach includes more than 200 million households and hotel rooms in over 200 countries. ITV, launched in 1955, is a commercial TV network in the United Kingdom but it is also widely available in other nations including Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Finally, Sky News, launched in 1989, is a 24-hour international, multimedia news operation and is also based in the United Kingdom. Sky News is majority owned by 21st Century Fox, and its shareholders include Rupert Murdoch, who is also the owner of conservative media outlets such as Fox News. At the same time, it is important to note that Qatar Airways has sponsored Sky News weather report since August 2005, for which it receives sponsorship credits on the daily 29 Sky News weather reports.

Results

The results section begins with a presentation of the general sentiment toward Qatari affairs in the global networks examined in the study, followed by an examination of the study’s hypotheses—beginning with sport-related issues, followed by the issue of terrorism, and concluding with a comparison between the two. Figure 1 presents the general sentiment of coverage toward Qatar in the three global networks examined in the study.

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Figure 1.

Overall tone toward Qatari affairs.

As presented in Figure 1, the overall sentiment toward Qatar on the three networks tends to be more positive than negative. In terms of volume, CNN reports on Qatari affairs more often than ITV and Sky News on Qatari affairs.

Figure 2 presents the sentiment reflected in stories covering Qatar and sport issues. As shown in Figure 2, CNN and ITV articles concerning Qatar’s sport affairs were highly critical, whereas Sky News presented Qatar-related sport affairs in a more positive light. The coverage of sport-related issues was significantly more negative in CNN and Sky News in comparison with reports on those networks on other Qatar-related issues (no significant differences in sentiment were found between sport-related and other articles concerning Qatar on ITV).

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Figure 2.

Tone toward Qatar in sport-related articles.

To attain a better understanding of these findings, we carefully analyzed the content of Qatar’s sport-related stories in our sample. The main topic that dominated sport-related coverage is allegations that Qatar bribed FIFA executives to win the 2022 World Cup bid, accusations which Qatar denied and described as “racist” (Kerr, 2015). Accordingly, to gain a better perspective of the networks’ sentiment toward Qatar in the World Cup bribery affair, we tracked the parties that were implicated in the bribery. Figure 3 presents an analysis of the World Cup affair articles by the specific party blamed for bribery. The most notable finding here is the difference between CNN, which mainly blames Qatar, versus Sky News and ITV, which most often blame FIFA.

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Figure 3.

Who is to blame in the World Cup affair?

Next, we examined the sentiment toward Qatar in news stories dealing with terror-related issues. Figure 4 shows that CNN articles were overall balanced in tone, but most of the articles on Sky News and ITV were positive. The difference in sentiment comparing terror-related articles with other Qatari affairs was statistically significant.

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Figure 4.

Tone toward Qatar in terror-related articles.

In light of these unanticipated results, which contradict our hypothesis that terror-related articles would reflect less positive sentiment than other articles, we closely evaluated the terror-related articles that portrayed Qatar in a positive light. We found that much of the positive sentiment reflected in these articles was related to praise for Qatar’s role as a negotiator in prisoner swaps. For example, in an item titled “Prisoner-Swap Soldier’s First Day Of Freedom” on Sky News on June 1, 2014, Obama expressed his gratitude to the Emir of Qatar for his assistance in the release Idaho-born Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for America turning over five Taliban detainees held in Guantanamo to Qatari custody. Thus, negative sentiment in articles criticizing Qatar as a home for terrorists (i.e., “Ex-Bush Advisor on Qatar backing extremists,” CNN, June 18, 2014) was set off by the positive sentiment in articles lauding Qatar’s contribution to the war against global terrorism.

Next, to obtain an even better understanding of these coverage trends, we studied the terror organizations mentioned in the articles. The findings are presented in Figure 5.

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Figure 5.

Terror organizations mentioned in terror-related articles concerning Qatar.

Figure 5 presents a breakdown of the terror groups linked to Qatar in our sample. The results indicated that CNN reported on Qatar’s funding of terror groups more often than the other networks, and linked Qatar to many more terror organizations. While CNN linked Qatar to ISIS, the Taliban, HAMAS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and the Muslim Brotherhood, Sky News and ITV articles focused on allegations concerning Qatari’s funding of ISIS. While, as noted in Figure 4, many of these articles actually mention Qatar’s role as an intermediary in ISIS kidnapping in a positive manner, the differences between the volume and focus of the three networks are interesting.

Finally, Figure 6 presents the ratio between sport, terror, and other issues in Qatar-related stories covered by the global networks. The findings show that the networks granted equal attention to sport, terror, and other issues. These findings strongly indicate that sport and terror were indeed the two main issues that were discussed in the majority of articles related to Qatari affairs on international news networks examined.

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Figure 6.

Breakdown of articles by theme (terror, sport, and other issues).

In line with the above results, we examined the validity of our hypotheses. The analysis revealed as follows:

Hypothesis 1, which predicted that Sky News, CNN, and ITV will present Qatar sport affairs more positively than other Qatar affairs, was strongly refuted: Sport-related articles were significantly more negative toward Qatar than other Qatar-related articles. As elaborated in the conclusions section, this surprising finding is the result of the various problematic sport-related incidents in which Qatar was implicated: First and foremost, allegations that the Qataris bribed FIFA executives to win the 2022 World Cup bid, and allegations of Qatar’s abuse and violations of the human rights of foreign workers preparing the stadiums.

Hypothesis 2, which predicted that Sky News, CNN, and ITV will present Qatar terror-funding allegations less positively than other Qatar affairs, was also strongly refuted, as terror affairs were covered significantly less negatively than other Qatari affairs. As noted, the reason behind this surprising result is that terror-related articles also mention Qatar’s assistance to the West in its fight against terror, specifically by using its financial resources and its contacts with terror organizations to arrange for the release of Western prisoners captured by these organizations, mostly by ISIS.

Hypothesis 3, which predicted that the networks are equally interested in sport and terror, was confirmed, as sport and terror were the issues most discussed in relation to Qatari affairs on all three networks, with similar volume between articles on sport and terror.

Conclusions

The current article examines the success of Qatar’s efforts to become a leading sport nation, which analysts identify as part of its attempts to divert public attention from its image as a terrorist organization funder image. The analysis of sentiment toward sport versus terror affairs on three international media networks, CNN, SKY News, and ITV, surprisingly showed that terror-related articles had a significantly more positive tone than articles on other affairs, while sport-related articles had a significantly more negative tone than other Qatari-related articles. This finding may be the result of several factors: First, perhaps the link to Qatar in sport-related incidents, particularly the FIFA bribery allegations case, was stronger than in the terror-funding incidents, where Qatari funds were transferred by private business people, and Qatari officials vehemently denied any involvement in the transactions. Second, as illustrated above, the results indicate that Qatar’s alleged “double game” of supporting terror organizations and assisting the West against these organizations or using their contacts in these organizations to act as an intermediary, as illustrated in the case of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl described above, may actually be a more effective strategy in Qatar’s image management efforts than sponsorship of megasport events.

Indeed, our analysis shows that international media was extremely critical of Qatar’s activities and paid much attention to the bribery allegations. The main allegations related to the World Cup bid became controversial as early as May 2011, when members of the English Football Association accused two members of the FIFA Executive Committee of receiving $1.5 million each in bribes paid by Qatar to support Qatar’s bid for the tournament. Our analysis showed that suspicions regarding Qatari bribery peaked in March 2014, when it was alleged that former Confederation of North, Central American, and Caribbean Association Football president Jack Warner and his family received almost $2 million from a firm linked to Qatar. In addition to allegations regarding bribery, in 2013, Amnesty International published a report on Qatar’s human rights abuse of migrant workers who were brought to build the stadiums for the 2022 World Cup. Finally, our analysis identified that many articles criticized the fact that Qatar was chosen to host the games despite the temperatures in Qatar in the summer, which can exceed 40 °C. ¹

The analysis, then, provides strong evidence of the potential damage caused by Qatar’s involvement in a sport incident, and specifically that hosting a megaevent may be detrimental to a country’s image. In fact, the analysis indicates that Qatar’s image strategy actually resulted in more critical sentiment in its sport-related coverage than in coverage of its terror-related allegations in the period examined. Importantly, this is not to argue that the bribery allegations and terror-related allegations caused the same degree of damage to Qatar’s international in international image, but rather, that the damage to Qatar’s image from improprieties related to its sport activities was much greater than Qatar originally anticipated.

The study strengthens former analyses that found that countries with a problematic image do not necessarily benefit from hosting megasport events. While countries often aim to improve their image by hosting megasport events, the study underscores that countries with a problematic image need to remember that hosting global sport events means that while the positive effects of their sponsorship are magnified, their misdeeds are similarly magnified and can prove highly damaging to the country’s international image. The present study indicates that Qatar’s alleged double game proved to be much more effective in repairing its problematic international image, at least as far as sentiment in international news media is concerned.

From a broader theoretical perspective, it can be argued that these findings cast doubts over the effectiveness of soft power strategies such as hosting global sport events or offsetting the damages caused to a country’s image by hard power operations, and that a country may obtain better results by taking genuine measures to fight terror or at least by serving as intermediaries in terror-related issues, as Qatar wisely chose to do. This might be an important lesson for countries such as Russia and China, whose attempts to divert attention from hard power acts by hosting the Olympic Games failed miserably.

Finally, although not the focus of the study, another interesting finding was that CNN was overall more critical, measured by volume and sentiment, than the U.K. international stations SKY and ITV. This could be the result of broader criticism against Qatar in the United States, for example, while Qatar’s Al-Jazeera faced challenges to enter the U.S. market in Europe, Al-Jazeera English is mostly welcome (Samuel-Azran, 2010). This finding could indicate that international relations probably play a role in determining the degree of criticism against Qatar expressed by Western-based international news networks.