The Arab Football Cup begins Tuesday, November 30 in Qatar with the participation of sixteen teams, a mini-dress rehearsal for the 2022 World Cup to be played in this country. The tournament will take place in six of the eight stadiums that will host World Cup matches in 2022, with a final scheduled for National Day, December 18, one year to the day before the World Cup final. The previous edition, which took place in 2012 in Saudi Arabia, saw the victory of Morocco.
The national team arrived this Sunday in Doha, Qatar, where they are scheduled to play in the FIFA Arab Cup.@LaurentBonadei who will lead the green hawks for this tournament, will field a selection of under 23 years. pic.twitter.com/IuQgMdcniE
– Saudi Football Federation (@SaudiFF_fr) November 28, 2021
Nine teams (Qatar, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates) have qualified thanks to their rank in the FIFA world rankings. The other seven played play-offs in Doha to secure a place in the tournament. This is the first time in nine years that this cut has taken place. Calendar problems had mainly prevented the on-time holding of this competition, which is supposed to take place every four years. It is also the first Arab Cup to be held under the auspices of FIFA, the International Football Federation, although most of the teams have not been able to call on their best elements.
The Qatar organizing committee will work to demonstrate its ability to organize the World Cup, one of the most anticipated sporting events on the planet. On Tuesday, the Qatar-Bahrain meeting will be held at the Al-Bayt stadium, the second largest among the six stadiums in terms of capacity (60,000 seats). Three other matches (Tunisia-Mauritania, Iraq-Oman, Syria-United Arab Emirates) will take place in three other stadiums on the same day.
Fans must be provided, in addition to their ticket for the match, with the “Hayya Card” to access the stadium and only people who have been vaccinated twice will be able to obtain it, in order to fight against Covid-19. Among other things, transport will be free for holders of this “Hayya Card”. At the Al-Bayt Stadium, built in the form of a huge Arab tent, the opening ceremony of the Arab Cup will take place. Fifa President Gianni Infantino has been invited to attend.
One year before the World Cup, which will take place for the first time in an Arab country, the organizing committee is engaged in a race against time to complete the preparations. The Gulf gas state hopes to welcome more than a million supporters and deny its contemptors, with the experience of other international competitions, from football to tennis to Formula 1, whose first GP took place on November 21. This gigantic gathering, with its hundreds of thousands of fans, is by far the biggest challenge of this desert peninsula of 2.7 million inhabitants where fervor and popular party spirit are rarely present.