By Dr Gary Mulholland
To be honest I am not an expert on football. I don’t like sitting around after the game and analysing every move and blaming my teams performance on the poor refereeing. I am an England for all my sins and this means getting used to the disappointment of victory being snatched from our hands in the ‘penalty shoot out’, reliving 1966, and expecting that England ‘ won't be bringing it home’.
However, I am a resident in Qatar the year that Football comes to Qatar. I am also Head of School of AFG College with the University of Aberdeen and teach and research business strategy, so I am a sort of expert on how the eventual winner of a game is often not who you expect!
To determine who will win the game the smart person, must think TWO things:
1. What does my team have to do to score more goals than my opponents?
What are the skills, capabilities and resources that characterise the quality of all the players and their teams in the competition? How can the manager and all the trainers, get the players to perform in the right way, against every team on every occasion they meet?
2. Do I actually need to score any goals to win the competition?
What is the desired outcome of the competition? Is the outcome of the competition really a single team holding a world cup aloft, or is the competition really something completely different? Maybe the majority are looking at the wrong outcome and still thinking about the pride of winning a world cup in 1966?
To win FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, Qatar has the choice:
- Try to be the best in the world at football and on every occasion in November and December of 2022, perform better than all other teams in the World Cup. This is not impossible as funding has been allocated to recruit and train the best players that can compete in the Qatar team. Many of these players now play international football across the world and have brought the Asian Cup home recently. Qatar, as the host country will be competing with 31 other teams, so they are in with a chance. Everything is possible.
- Rethink the purpose of FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022TM. Not as a competition that involves 32 teams kicking a football around a pitch, but as an opportunity to redefine what Qatar is; where it is; what it does; and why the world should sit up and listen!
So many great events are converging, partly driven by FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022TM, partly driven by Qatar National Vision 2030, and partly by serendipity. Changes in global travel have meant that the Middle East region really is now in the middle of the world and has become an international travel hub. Hamad International Airport is one of the two international hubs that serve the rest of the world. The National 2030 Vision is transforming Qatar into an outward-looking Nation with expertise in a high-value knowledge economy, away from an economy reliant on Oil & Gas. In December 2010, Qatar successfully bid and won the FIFA World Cup nomination. Today Qatar has a diverse economy, a growing and educated population, an international destination and a modern and developing infrastructure that will continue to deliver benefits for society and the nation of Qatar.
Compare this to those countries that have been awarded the FIFA World Cup in previous times and how this was wasted:
- South Africa – 2010
- Brazil – 2014
- Russia – 2018
Mostly forgotten and arguably wasted opportunities.
Today in Qatar there are new industries, a growing tourism and leisure market, a very successful international transport hub, outstanding educational facilities from the best universities in the world, world-leading sporting facilities, modern transport infrastructure, and reputation for extraordinary transformation, and a vision to share this success with neighboring countries.
As a strategist and a resident in Qatar, I am convinced that not only has Qatar already played a great strategic game, but also laid the foundations for a long-term winning streak! Who knows they might even win the FIFA 2022 World Cup?
What are the skills, capabilities and resources that characterise the quality of all the players and their teams in the competition? How can the manager and all the trainers, get the players to perform in the right way, against every team on every occasion they meet?
