World Cup In Qatar As A Sport Diplomacy Instrument

Abstract

Qatar has flourishing national image, particularly after its 37atalyst role in the Arab Spring and its conspicuous achievements in the field of infrastructure, media, technology, energy, diplomacy and public diplomacy. Sport is a significant tool that could exceed politics, conduce to the success of solutions to political problems, contribute mutual relations and diminish the economic and political distinction. Sport diplomacy as tool of public diplomacy makes important contibutions to the country's national image building and mutual relationships with the other countries. Qatar uses of sport diplomacy in accomplishing its goals of improving its image not only in the Middle East but also in the World as becoming regional sports hub. FIFA 2022 World Cup as an opportunity to contribute Qatar's sport diplomacy while presenting and explaining the country with ease. While emphasizing that football fans from all over the world will come to Qatar to experience the first FIFA World Cup 2022 in the Middle East and the Arab World, it reflects that Qatar's strategy of sports diplomacy covers wider regions. The region's first FIFA World Cup for Qatar and the Middle East is seen as an opportunity to promote intercultural understanding, exchange ideas between locals and people from all over the world, promote an understanding of the culture of Qatar and the region, and introduce themselves to the world. Sustainability development is also in Qatar's agenda since 2008. Qatar has been building cutting-edge infrastructure such as stadiums, and maintain the tournament and its preparations as a 37atalyst for sustainable, long-term change. The FIFA World Cup 2022 is intended to contribute to the achievement of Qatar's development goals set out in Qatar's National Vision (QNV) 2030 and National Development Strategy (NDS) 2018-2022, which define long-term outcomes to Qatar's vision of sustainability under four main pillars: human development, social development, environmental development and economic development. In Qatar's hosting of the tournament offers opportunities for a sustainable future and a lasting legacy for Qatar, the Middle East, Asia and the world. In this study, Qatar's world cup sustainability strategy in four main pillar will be examined in the context of sports diplomacy asanalysing the feedback of the target audience. In this study, semiotic analysis method was applied to the five videos that received the most likes among 193 tweets with "Qatar2022" and "SeeYouInQatar" hashtags and videos published on the Qatar FIFA World Cup official account (Road to 2022 @roadto2022en) between 07.12.2020 and 13.04.2022, and content analysis method was applied to twitter comments on these tweets. This study applied dual method to reveal the relationship between the perception of sustainability in the visual and the perception of sustainability produced in the comments in the context of sports diplomacy, and to see the challenges in sports diplomacy, if any.