The World Is a Ball: Qatar pays fans to promote positive World Cup propaganda

The organizing committee of the Qatar World Cup, which starts on the 20th of this month, will turn to fans of participating teams to publicize the competition positively and report negative content.

According to the Reuters news agency, they will have airfare and accommodation paid for by the organizers and, in return, they will have the function of, on social networks, making favorable comments on publications referring to the first World Cup in the Middle East.

Without providing the cost of the undertaking, the organization of the Cup confirmed the information after the broadcaster NOS (radio and TV), from the Netherlands, reported that 50 fans from the European country will have expenses to watch the tournament, which ends on December 18. .

According to the organizing committee, fans should not act as “spokespersons” for the host country, but “it is obviously not appropriate to disparage Qatar, the committee or the World Cup”.

For the privilege of following “in loco” one of the most prestigious sports competitions that exist –the other is the Olympic Games–, with an audience of over 3 billion people, these fans will be under contract.

There is a kind of code of conduct that they will have to follow until the beginning of December, when they can choose to continue in the Asian country, for the knockout stage, or return to their point of origin.

Among the duties of these fans is to report to the organizing committee “any offensive, degrading or abusive comment” involving the name of Qatar, with screenshot, so that the authorities can assess what measures to take.

Positive third-party posts, on the other hand, should be “liked” and shared widely.

Qatar, with the World Cup approaching, is trying to improve the country’s image, scratched by complaints from NGOs about the exploitation of immigrant labor in the construction of facilities related to the World Cup and also of crimes against LGBTQIA+ people.

NOS spoke with two fans who said they had been selected as “fan leaders” and tasked with selecting the others for the trip “on the lane”. There would also be an individual daily rate of US$ 68 (R$ 348) for general expenses.

Worlds organizers claim to have a “Fan Leaders” program in 60 countries, with around 400 fans and digital influencers who have provided “knowledge, research, content creation and message amplification” for the competition.

The number of fans involved in this action by the organization can reach 1,600, according to the Associated Press, which represents an average of 50 per participating country. This number has not been confirmed by the organizing committee.