There was no date but there is a desire to host United Rugby Championship and perhaps Heineken Champions Cup Games in Qatar.
“We hope to have games here one day,” said Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker speaking at the weekend launch of his company’s new partnership with the two tournaments.
Chief Executives Martin Anayi and Anthony Lepage were both keen to stress that this was the early stages of the new relationship but that the staging of games in the region did make sense.
“We would need to build up to games,” said Anayi. But the stadia here that will remain after this year’s FIFA World Cup will be state of the art and they will be able to host games for 20,000 or 30,000 fans that could perhaps be part of a pre-season tournament or between teams from the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
Temperatures at the weekend showed as 39 degrees, feeling like 50 degrees on the weather apps but in the winter they drop to low 20’s, no different, and a drier heat than we have had here through the summer so it is not in any way impossible from a climate point of view.
A grand final in May would be hotter but with ongoing discussion about a cyclical global club competition, you would not bet against Doha being in the running to stage that.
“We always have to be, and we always try to be outward looking so we’d never close anything off,” continued Anayi.
“At the same time we want players to play less competition but of a higher quality so we’ve got to balance that up with new territories. So I think pre-season, definitely we could see something.
“The World Sevens Series is reducing its fixtures so is there room for a club sevens competition? You could imagine with some slightly novel thinking, innovative thinking, something like that could work well.”
The partnership will have wider benefits as well with the Aspetar Sports Medicine campus already part of the rehab programme for sporting stars from Paris St Germain, Bayern Munich and other leading sporting bodies.
There will be URC players who would be only too keen to avail of the same facilities as Killian M’Bappe, Lionel Messi and the rest to speed their recovery, and that was one of the areas where everyone in Doha at the weekend could see some clear benefit to the new relationship the airline and the state has with the sport.
There will also be a visible presence with referees wearing a Qatar Airways branded shirt when games resume in a little over ten days’ time.
Qatar Airways is one of the biggest sponsors in world sport having been on the Barcelona shirt and now with deep relationships with Paris St Germain, Bayern Munich and of course the World Cup.
Sport clearly works as a means of telling the story of Qatar on the world stage.
“It would be a great opportunity if we can host something in Doha, whatever format we might do – whether teams play warm-up matches here, north-south derbies. That would be great to put something together like that,” said Hendrik Du Preez who manages the airlines interests across Africa,
“There is a big expatriate community supporting rugby in the Middle East, with clubs in Qatar and Dubai. I think there would be a big demand for games. And it would be great to fly people in for games as well.
“I think we always have to be, and we always try to be outward looking so we’d never close anything off. At the same time we want players to play less competition but of a higher quality so we’ve got to balance that up with new territories. So I think pre-season, definitely we could see something.
“The World Sevens Series is reducing its fixtures so is there room for a club sevens competition? You could imagine with some slightly novel thinking, innovative thinking, something like that could work well.”
The most visible part of the three-year deal initially will be the Qatar Airways logo emblazoned across the chests of BKT URC referees when the new season kicks off in 10 days when Munster will be the first Irish team to begin their campaign with an away trip to Cardiff on Friday, September 16. Yet games in Qatar are very much front and centre in the airline’s thoughts as their vice president of sales for Africa Hendrik du Preez explained.
“It’s definitely something we’ve tabled if there was an opportunity. There might be great opportunities post (FIFA) World Cup. We’ve got great stadiums that have been built here and used during the World Cup,” du Preez said.
