The association of supporters of the French team, the French irresistiblespublished, Friday, April 1, a series of tweets for'”alert French supporters“A few days before the opening of the ticket office for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Contacted by Franceinfo:sport, Fabien Bonnel, the vice-president of the association, who takes care in particular of the travel of supporters of the Blues, agreed to answer our questions to clarify the situation.
You highlight major logistical and financial problems, particularly in terms of accommodation for supporters wishing to go to the World Cup, can you explain the situation?
For the moment there is an online platform which lists the accommodation available in Qatar. It has been open since March 21, but you can only book accommodation if you have bought a match ticket, whereas for us the “supporter ticket office”, where you can buy tickets for the French team, will open on April 5. Given that it’s already open for ticket holders who participated in the first phase of sales, where you could buy tickets without knowing which match they corresponded to, we’re not even sure that there are still accommodation available that corresponds to what you are looking for, affordable housing. For the moment in terms of price, there is a bit of everything, but the accommodations which are in reasonable price ranges are far from Doha and are far from the standards expected of a hotel or an apartment . In addition, during the last events, it was our association that took care of booking group accommodation, which is currently impossible, in view of the organization set up by Qatar and currently in force.
How is the French Football Federation handling the situation and is it concerned by your concerns?
The FFF knows our situation, because the association has meetings with them quite regularly. However, they have little or no information at this time. The person at the Fédé who takes care of the ticketing will have a meeting tomorrow with FIFA to explain the process. Unfortunately, this meeting comes only three days before the opening of the ticket office for supporters and we will know at the last moment how it is going. They tell us regularly that they ask for information, which most of the time remains unanswered. It’s not as usual, we really have the impression that Qatar is working on its side, FIFA too and that does not help to clarify the situation.
Do the supporters expect a little more support from the Federation?
On the one hand, we would dream a little that the FFF and the sponsors could pay for transport or other things, as we have seen with other federations in South America. But we know we are far from it. We would like, for the first poster of the French team, that a plane be chartered, with an affordable price, so that a few hundred supporters can make the round trip. The problem is that the Federation is waiting to see how many people buy their ticket to consider chartering a plane, and the supporters on their side do not know if it can be put in place and therefore do not buy their tickets. It’s a bit like the snake biting its own tail. However, it has never really been implemented before and we have no illusions.
You denounce the instrumentalization of certain fans by the “Supreme Comitee Qatari”, can you say more?
We learned that a program called “Fan leader” exists. We were approached to be part of the device. This consists, for supporters of different nationalities, in going to Doha any costs paid by Qatar in order to visit the various World Cup venues in return for positive communication on social networks. In this sense, these “Fan leaders” are not going to talk about the workers who died during the construction of the stadiums or even the ecological problems linked to air conditioning in the stadiums. It allows them to advertise, and in this sense we could not accept this kind of thing.
Within the Irresistibles Français, are there supporters who intend to boycott the event?
This has been a fairly debated subject in the association. What was decided was not to carry out a collective boycott action, because we didn’t want the office to make a decision for everyone, and we therefore leave free choice to those who want to go, while accompanying them in their process. However, among the members, many have decided to boycott this World Cup for different reasons. Then there are those who will give up because of the logistical or financial problems mentioned above. It’s difficult to project yourself into this World Cup, which is supposed to be an event that is experienced as a group between supporters, a moment of celebration, and in the end there may not be many supporters who will go there.