YouSaid · the spoken record

James Montague

lines on the record: 59
first: 2022-11-21
most recent: 2022-11-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I was going to get big if it's now the biggest story in football is the power of the Middle East and the Gulf in football and it will only get bigger and bigger and bigger.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. What's that about? Because they play football on a Friday. So it was a pun on when Saturday comes. So because it's the holy day and that's when a lot of people play football.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You understand football, and there's some great writers that have written about this. I mean, David Winner being one of them, David Goldblack, all the Davids that have written great books about how we play football is a great mirror and reflection of society. And I think that's what it is. And that's what when Friday comes, go back to it, the book, When Friday Comes. That's what it is. Football is a reflection of society. And through that football, you understand a place and time in the Middle East, I think.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now I think football and politics are intimately connected everywhere you go just because it's a game of the street and there is something as well of the by that I mean that what happens in communities and in countries often is reflected in this stadium full of people so what those hopes and dreams are of that community often reflected in what goes on in the football stadiums and also governments especially authoritarian governments are absolutely addicted to the idea of reflected glory through football, of controlling that populist urge that you get through football, that kind of, you know, this wonderful aesthetic and pageantry in football, they want to be part of it. I mean, one of the masters of that was Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, who very much wanted to use the national team going through its probably most successful period in history for political ends. So I don't think you should see it as the Middle East. I think we should see it as everywhere.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, but they're going to go and they might make, but ultimately they know that going to the World Cup matters more. So again, the Qatar can point to the hypocrisy of all of that.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I can't think so. I mean, not, I mean, I think Norway boycotted it by failing to qualify. And, you know, there was some, you know, there's been, there are a lot of fans that are boycotting it. And I can understand their viewpoint on that. And I can respect it. Fair enough. I think boycotting, personally boycotting things is a great political power that people should use more and it's quite an effective tool. But yeah, I can't think of any. I think that Norway would have been putting a bit of a difficult situation.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Egypt, but let's be honest, right? The moment that PIF was allowed to buy Newcastle United, essentially anybody, there's no one that's too bad to buy a football club to host a tournament. There is anyone will host it. Saudi Arabia, it has the money, it has the power within FIFA. If it wants to and it wants to push hard enough, it will do it. And I think that's a really sad indictment of how football's gone that's the power and money will talk.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and of course they've actually looks like they're going to bid for the World Cup, which is going to be, I believe, with, is it Greece? And there's one other country that they're going to bid it.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mentioned recently, I mean, no, I mean, the IOC, I believe, has just brought in a kind of human rights element to Olympic Games because it was just getting so much criticism. I mean, football hasn't done that.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's a very good question because a lot of countries in the Gulf present themselves as extremely forward thinking in that respect. And the UAE is one of them, Saudi Arabia is one of them Qatar is one of them. They'll point to the role of women in the workplace. They'll point to the female ministers. But what lies underneath? And one of the issues, of course, is that they essentially agenda apartheid based legal system where women frequently have fewer votes, a fewer rights than men. And I suppose that the only issue, or one of the big issues, is that in comparison to Iran, which is obviously has an appalling record of human rights towards women, that it appears to be much more open-minded, but it's still light years behind equality. I mean, the West still has a long, long way to go in assuring equality between men and women.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, mate, I believe you, thousands wouldn't. But, like, you know, it kind of worked and it was kind of impressive, but it wasn't the solution. Well, we've got a fan queuing. I mean, it's bad enough when you see the way the workers are treated and how they have to work in that heat anyway. And so, you know, I'm glad, I mean, it's going to be a bit chilly, if anything. I remember going to the Asian Cup in 2011, a couple of weeks after they won the bid, you know, and it was like, I remember seeing Qataris and ski jackets. And it was pissing her down. You know, it was like, so take an umbrella and a scarf.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it was. And, you know, there was the other thing to remember is the vision thing, right? I mean, I've sat down with Seb Blatter several times I've interviewed him. He's quite an interesting character because FIFA is kind of obviously deeply corrupt, but he was kind of like, I don't know, he was this kind of guy who essentially he was the manager of a golf club and then suddenly the golf club becomes kind of the richest, most powerful sports institution in the world. And he wasn't kind of quite equipped to deal with it. But he knew how to keep power within the golf club. And so I'm not sure if he was actually ever personally corrupt. I don't think he was. First time I felt that was in 2017, and it was kind of late August, and it kind of worked. I dread to think what the carbon footprint for that was.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What can you do with that? You know, that's real power in action. And if a state decides and Russia to a certain extent decided this as well, if a state decides that it's in their interest to host this tournament, that's what's the full weight of the state, not just in terms of those bilateral deals, but in the use of spying, in the use of hacking, in the use of, you know, there's a great one of the Australia bid representatives wrote a book a few years ago and she describes in an interview how they turned up and everybody in Zurich for this vote, everybody's phone stopped working as soon as the Russians turned up because the FSB were there and they'd all brought like mobile phone jammers and communication jammers there. That's the level that this was at. And so the short answer is that they played a better game than anyone else and they realized that they realized how to wield hard power to get it.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Essentially, I mean, look, we could have an entire hour about everything that happened in FIFA. I think the short answer to this is, and we have to remember there hasn't really been a kind of smoking gun when it comes to kind of these accusations which Qatar denies that they massively bribed FIFA's ex-clay members to vote for it. They basically played an extremely bent game better than anyone else and used hard political power to achieve those ends. And I think that's probably, I think that's probably the closest we're going to get to understanding it is that, you know, it's one thing saying the sums involved in small, I don't know, like a couple of hundred thousand in the brown paper bag being given someone to vote compared to a massive gas deal between the head of your country and the head of another country that just happens to have a vote on the FIFA.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Our bottom line, if they were invaded, and that meant that that couldn't be allowed to happen. So in a way, it was kind of setting up a kind of firewall against kind of protect their own backs. And I think it was successful.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Probably, I mean, you have to ask the French about that and the Raphael jet fighter that was sold to Qatar shortly after the bid was won. But yeah, I do understand the criticism because you struggle with that sometimes. But I think when you see as a net gain overall, not just looking at it about how it affects how we in the West think about it. And to a certain extent as well, think about it this way. One of the reasons why Qatar has investments in the West and wants to kind of be friends with everybody is to protect its position in a very dangerous neighborhood. But what happens when the blockade takes place in 2017? And there's a very real danger of them being invaded by a coalition of forces. Having the World Cup and having those kind of financial connections to France, to the US through arms, through football club ownership, through broadcasting rights, it made it affected.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm going to the Emirates, right? I mean, you don't even think about it, but because the state-owned aircraft airliner struck this deal, it has now seeped into the lexicon in the same way that Etihad has done for the same reasons in Manchester and have no doubt it will be the Aramco or Saudi Arabia stadium in Newcastle. The same thing happened. Sportswashing, if you'll use that phrase, reputation laundering, it works. I just think that the World Cup is incredible benefits, but it's an incredible microscope. And I think that they weren't prepared for the kind of, but it's still a net game. That's the other thing to remember.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's fair because, especially if you think about it from a Western perspective, right, you think about Catan, you think there's nothing positive. I mean, for many people,”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Funded by the Qatari Olympic Committee, and to this day is called the Doha Stadium. So it has kept confriendships with all of these necessary. And one of the reasons is with Iran is because they share this massive gas field. And after 1995, I mean, 1995, what happens is the previous emir whose son Tamiymir is now in charge, he comes to power in a bloodless power coup, a palace coup. He takes over from his father and he reforms immediately the economy and society and they properly begin to exploit this huge gas wealth they have, which is one of the reasons why they've then, I think they are now currently per capita the richest country in the world.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's gas money, basically. It has one of the largest gas, natural gas fields in the world, which it shares with Iran, which is one of the reasons, well, one of the reasons of the Gulf blockade was that Qatar, because of this history of mediation and negotiation, has always tried to keep good relations with everybody. So, for instance, at the same time as hosting a US military base, which the Saudis refuse to do, also pays the government salaries of Hamas in Gaza. It keeps good relations with Iran, for instance, whilst at the same time trying to keep good relations with Iran's enemies. For a long time before the Abraham Accords, Qatar was the country that had back channel good relations with Israel, much better than its neighbors. I mean, there's even a football stadium in Sakhinin, which is an Arab town and have a club called Binisaknin, which is a kind of totem for the 20% or 25% Israeli Arab population, and their stadium.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Own Newcastle United to shut that down. Russia would double down on criticism and what about ism and they wouldn't even dream of taking on board any Western criticism. Qatar has to its credit, I think, has had to, but partly because of the situation it finds itself in. One of the reasons why it wanted the World Cup in the first place has had to engage in this process. And I think that is kind of, I think that's an interesting point about this entire long 12 year period of kind of almost total criticism of Qatar that people kind of forget about.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“First, they tried to block it out, but they actually had to deal with it, and somehow had to engage in the process. Now, that's not something that the UAE has ever done or will ever do. And there's legitimate criticism of the UAE in how Manchester City, for instance, which is owned by the brother of the ruling family, of the ruler, who's the deputy prime minister and minister of presidential affairs, and how that club is being used to launder the UAE's reputation, which is far worse in human rights terms than Qatar. So it's Saudi Arabia doesn't listen because it has so much money through oil, doesn't listen to any criticism at all. It just uses and leverages its wealth.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, oh, absolutely. I don't think anybody was expecting it. And one of the things is, I mean, it sounds weird saying that he's sympathetic about this because there's so many wrong things. But Qatar is a very small country. It can't just shut out the entire world. It has spent its entire existence. And even when the Altani family was a tribe under British protection before the existence of an official existence of Qatar, this is a country that's had to exist between Saudi Arabia and Iran and colonial powers that coveted it and used mediation and negotiation to get around it. You know, that's why it has this massive US air base there to protect it in case of, well, exactly what happened when you had the Gulf Blockade, you know, so that nobody could invade it. It's in a very tenuous position. It involves clever negotiation and clever political calculus. And so when it comes to World Cup criticism, you know.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's quite, I don't know what that would be on satanic terms, what level Wales would be I think Iran is going to be a huge issue. You've got a replay of the Serbia Switzerland game, which I covered that game for the New York Times in Russia. And because half the team from Kosovo, and so that became a huge issue, okay, political issue. So I think it will fade a little bit. But this is, you know, these are going to be questions all the way through. And I think the organizers hope that this will go away, but I mean, it won't. And the other thing to bring up about this as well is that this is what the government, the royal family, the people in power in Qatar wanted. Now, they wanted this microscope. They wanted this visibility that football and the World Cup brought them, but they were not prepared for the criticism that that kind of”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And of course, there's always going to be other stories. I mean, there's just off the top of my head, you know, as well as all the Qatari stories, you have Iran, a country that I know very well, you know, have reported from several on several occasions. I have Iranian family, you know, this is a place that is undergoing what many think is the beginnings of a new revolution. And the national football team is caught up in that and they're playing England, the little Satan, the great Satan and Wales. I'm not sure what Wales would be. Would that be the tiny Satan?”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The Belgian second division and first division, where you might have watched Urpen, which is a team that the Qatar Aspire Academy company essentially bought so they could bring their graduates in and play in the second and first division in Belgian football. So I think that's part of the problem is that to many people it's just so unrecognizable that it's an unrecognizable World Cup to them. And so these conversations will continue all the way through. I suspect there will be a little bit it will tamp down a little bit when it starts because the football is all encompassing and it's going to be, you know, there are going to be so many matches in quick success.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And a very fun place to visit. I mean, look, Qatar, it's like the same with this in the Middle East as well. I mean, if, I mean, you always find somewhere to get a drink somewhere, even in the darkest days of going to Jeddah in 2008, you find someone, even if it's some kind of home brewed hooch. But alcohol isn't part of the kind of conversation. You're more likely to get stoned with hash with young people because everybody smokes everywhere you go, especially in the Gulf. You know, this is a big thing, Saudi Arabia especially. The thing is, the Qatar World Cup is so alien to so many people, not just the time that it was, you know, the time of year is alien. In the Northern Hemisphere, I mean, they've had Winter World Cups in the wintertime of the Southern Hemisphere several times. The countries is alien, that the religion is alien, that the region is alien, that the team is alien, that the Qatari national team, that no one knows any of those players unless you're a keen follower of...”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, and I think part of that is that the Russia World Cup for all its flaws, and it was deeply flawed. I mean, we have to remember that when it was being hosted, the Ukraine war, it wasn't that it was about to begin in four years time. It had already been raging for four years. I mean, I visited the front lines a few years ago. I mean, this was a war that had been going on in Europe for a long time. You know, it was a deeply flawed World Cup. It should never have been hosted there. But it was also to a lot of people recognizable. You know, it was a Summer World Cup. It was a country that was recognizable to them in football terms.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or something, you know, as in, like, have you got a cold now? You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't know where you might not be able to place it on the map, but know that there is a country called Qatar. So there is a kind of pride in that. But there is also the fact that this is a lot of money to spend. And this is a cradle to grave, a truly cradle to grave welfare state, but it's still at least 200 billion dollars, probably a hell of a lot more being spent on that when there are other things that a lot of Qataris view that they should be spending money on. You know, one of them a lot of Qataris still, even though they have fabulous benefits, still have a lot of personal debt. Why not clear personal debt? Why build a metro system? No Qataris will use the metro system. They drive everywhere. It's a car obsessed country. And so these arguments about people coming and, you know, this is our country and these are our rules. Why are you coming here and wanting to break our rules? I mean, people could be upset about that, but I think it's at least.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of the things that is kind of really frustrating about this is that one of the voices that's missing from this, and maybe the Carlid Salman example is probably a reason why, is that Qataris aren't ever spoken to. And part of the reason is because, you know, they're fearful that they're going to be manipulated, that they're bad actors in the press that will make them look bad, partly because they're hidden away by, you know, they don't want to, you know, this isn't authoritarian country. I mean, speaking freely isn't something that is necessarily encouraged publicly. You know, when you do speak to Qataris, it is a much more nuanced picture. And there's a lot of unhappiness at the World Cup as well, because it's like, who is the World Cup for? And we're very proud of it, you know, because this makes Qatar kind of a leading nation in the world, which is the reason why they wanted it in the first place. And part of that is true. I mean, if I told anybody back home in Essex I was going to Qatar in 2005, you know, they'd be like, where?”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The World Cup didn't produce that change, but it's something that attitudes do change over time. So if you think of Qatar as a country that has existed for 50 years, where they have got to, where they started and where they have got to, you would hope that this is something that will develop over time. But the World Cup certainly isn't going to, I don't think, make that change go any quicker.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's incredibly problematic. And I think FIFA came to that kind of position, well, for lots of many reasons. But for this issue, I think they viewed that this was a controllable set of circumstances. But as we know, from what we saw with Khalid Salman in the past couple of days, what he said, people's actual views are on homosexuality, they haven't changed. And this World Cup isn't going to change that either. And there is one argument. I mean, I suppose this is Qatar society has changed at breakneck speed. There is a great book called Inside Qatar by John McManners where he talks about how actually the new generation of Qataris are becoming much more conservative. So this might fly in the face of this a little bit. But, you know, attitudes do change over time. And, you know, we have to remember, I think I'm not incorrect in saying this, that when the World Cup was hosted in England in 66, I think homosexuality was still illegal. It was still the law and the statute book then. And that's something, I mean,”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, they are. I mean, proposition many times in the Middle East. I mean, by men a lot more than women. Homosexuality in Middle Eastern countries is kind of tolerated, but obviously within the letter of the law, there is nothing you can do. It's absolute restriction. people could risk their lives by being who they are. It's kind of tolerated in some countries a little bit more than another, for instance, in Oman, turn a blind eye to it. The UA in Qatar is a little bit like that as well, except if you come on the wrong, on the radar of the wrong person, then you can be punished for it. And so, you know, FIFA knew this when they were, FIFA knew this when they were awarding the World Cup. The problem is that any country you give that has a legal system based on Sharia law is going to have a very similar set of attitudes and a legal system towards gay people.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“With a kind of jealousy from its neighbors because there's a lot of interfamily inter-country rivalries that have been going on for a long, long time, that this World Cup has kind of brought to the surface and the blockade was absolutely one of them. And you could see there was so much hacking going on, I think the UAE ambassador to Washington had his emails hacked and like, you know, there's all these hackings. And you can see that.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, it is, and the criticism, a lot of the criticism of Qatar is kind of completely valid. And the worker rights issue is completely valid as well. And now that they've got it and they're saying that it's racist to bring this up, that it's Orientalism to bring this up. I mean, you couldn't be further from the truth. I mean, I think there is definitely a feeling within a lot of there are newspapers and we know who they are that have jumped onto this issue that wouldn't give a shit about kafala or what happens to those kind of workers and especially if you had a similar system in the uk where you had 90 of the country were were workers from india and 10 were british nationals you can imagine the kind of system they'd be calling on but originally this world cup was supposed to be about the middle east world cup right the muslim world's first world cup the arab world's first world cup and this was about fraternity and bringing people together but of course the almost since the minute they won it in 2010 it has been festooned”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, it has. I have a lot of respect. There's some great activists who've been on this for 20 years. Nick McGee, one of them who's probably seen him in lots of stuff, guy, really respect. He's very critical still of the process. And I think he's right in that now, especially as it's become clear the World Cup will definitely take place in Qatar, which is something that it didn't look like was the case. I mean, five, six years ago, there was all these corruption allegations around FIFA that seemed to kind of surround this and FIFA maybe that might be a reason to take it away from Qatar. Or then you had the Gulf blockade from 2017 to 2021, where basically Qatar falls out with all of its neighbors. So yeah, it's a kind of strange situation.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think that is something that is, you know, at least in terms of awareness of one of the great economic crimes of the 21st century, I think that's an important point that shouldn't be lost.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That could have done that. I mean, maybe the UAE in certain respects, but you've always got to remember that with that development, and it was something that was obvious the minute I put my foot down in 2004 in Dubai, is that all of that economic miracle is built on the backs of millions of workers from Asia and Southeast Asia whose lives are destroyed under the kafala system. And this isn't just a problem with Qatar. This is a problem much worse in Saudi Arabia. It is much worse in the United Arab Emirates, where this issue of kafala and the exploitation of worker rights does get short-shrift. But the World Cup brought this issue to the world's attention. And I suppose if there's one thing I would say was a positive, even if it's an imperfect reform process, the fact that when I first went to the Middle East, not a single person gave a shit about kafala. Not one newspaper editor gave a shit about kafala. The World Cup made people care about it.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Play England a few days. There's going to be a rematch with the great Shayton with USA replay of the 1998 group stage game. I mean, there's a lot of discussion about whether Turkey is part of the Middle East or not, or even the phrase the Middle East is some kind of orientalist construct. But Turkey would be, I mean, I'm calling from Istanbul, Turkey would host a fabulous finals. So there were lots of options where you could think, okay, this has the kind of culture and the fan base and the history to do it. But Caton was really the only place. But this is a country that's been built in 50 years and only really became part of the super rich in the past kind of 25 years. What's happening there? On the one hand, you can look at it and say, look, this is a very corporate kind of type of tournament. But in another way, you could say that kind of development, that breakneck development is quite impressive. You couldn't really see, you couldn't really think of anybody else.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, country's safe, it has the money, so it could organize it and add the wherewithal to organize it. You probably couldn't have it in Egypt, which would be the, even given the situation at the moment with it becoming increasingly more authoritarian regime, Egypt would be a fantastic place. Iran, you know, in a different dimension, Iran would be one of the best places to hold a football tournament given the kind of absolute obsession and passion for football. And also huge culture of football and also, you know, they're very good at it as well, which is another thing.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, yeah, because I mean, if you're thinking about where you would have a World Cup in the Middle East, in terms of fan culture, there are much better options. I mean, I mean, in a perfect world, I mean,”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Egypt was probably the place that left the biggest mark on me because I was there before, during and after the revolution. And I became very good friends with the leader of the Alachli ultras who become this kind of revolutionary movement during the Arab Spring. But then the entire movement is destroyed. You have to put Said Massacre where 72 fans essentially were murdered by government and pro-government figures. That revolution is destroyed and many of my friends were destroyed in that. And I'm not sure I could even go back. I mean, I don't know if I'd once even risk going back to Egypt. So it's kind of strange looking back at a lot of these stories because it was when I first wrote it, it obviously then becomes a completely different world within six months of the book coming out.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you see Yemenis the way they dress, they have this kind of like Kandora, this kind of white kind of tunic shirt thing with a jacket and a kind of very distinctive type of headdress. And they have this can jar, just kind of curved knife. And there's always violence at football matches. They had like a police car out or a car outside with the police in it where they would take people's canjars off of them and give them a ticket. And so you had all these kind of wonderful memories. The call to prayer would come out. And because nothing was standardized there, it was kind of like a million call to prayers all coming at different times. It was just this dizzying, beautiful sound, you know, in this, the view was absolutely incredible. But then what happens? After this game, I get, you know, the general secretary says, oh, okay, it'll come back to mine. We'll choose some cat. And I go back with his friends. And it's like, no one can get off this stuff. And we go back to his house and he has the majilis, which is in Arab houses, you know, have this room where you go and meet friends.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This was like pretty powerful stuff, and I thought, well, through this football team, you can kind of tell the story of this drug, which is decimating the country's economy and health and all these kind of things. And so I went to Yemen and I meet the general secretary of the FA, who's been brought in to kind of clean up the players and tell them that they've got to stop taking cut or they're not going to play for the national team. And I follow him around for a few days as he's kind of doing this. And I get to see Sana, which is a beautiful city. The old city has these first skyscrapers were built in Yemen. And they kind of built mud, these mud skyscrapers that many of them, I mean, they were standing until, you know, the war prosecuted and led by the UAE and Saudi Arabia using weapons supplied by the UK and the US. It was such a beautiful place. And I spent part of a week with this Elliott Ness character trying to clean up the game, went and watched the Yemeni local football match, which was amazing because.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, quite a few. I mean, one of them, when I went to Yemen, you know, and this was 2006. And at the time, I remember I came across this story because local newspapers were great in Arabic and in English. They would have these matter-of-fact local stories, which I found were just wonderful because there was one I came across that the entire Yemeni National Olympic team had been banned from, I think it was the Asian games because every single player failed the drugs test. And I was like, how did every player on the Yemeni national team fail a drug test? Like, what are they taking in Yemen? And the answer was they were chewing cut, which is like this leaf drug that grows at a certain altitude in Yemen and in other countries as well. And it was 80% of the population were chewing it. And this drug was responsible for all sorts of social ills. It was kind of accepted. It wasn't Haram considered kind of banned in Islam or certainly not in Yemen.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Probably the greatest player, one of the greatest players that ever come out of Africa. So there was talent, there was culture, there was history and great stories, but there was hardly anybody listening. And one of the things I wanted to do with When Friday comes was try and document some of those in a very, I suppose in a very Western way, but document them and try to, because I was fascinated by them and I wanted to know more about them.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and he so he's probably Qatar's greatest ever player and he scores a hat trick against Brazil, what is now called the kind of FIFA Under-20s World Cup. You know, they got to the final of that. They almost qualified for two World Cups. They came within one goal twice of qualifying once in 98 and I think it was it 94? No, it wasn't 94 and maybe 2002. You know, these are all stories that build a football kind of culture. But then talking more widely about the Middle East, football's been played there for over 100 years and where you've got a place, a region that is so misunderstood and stereotyped. And what do they know about football? And go to the Tehran Derby. You'll see 120,000 people there. I mean, now it's a bit different, but when I first went to Egypt, you'd see the Cairo Derby between Zamalek and Al-Aqhli. One of the great football experiences producing a player like Abu Trekka, who's like...”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Few years in the 1980s, Catal was probably the best team in the Middle East. Actually, it's quite funny talking about this now because I interviewed a guy called Khalid Salman who has become extraordinarily famous now around the world because he made an extremely homophobic remark. He's kind of an ambassador on the front page of New York.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Realize that there is football culture there, that it does mean something. There are stories, there are heroes, there are near misses. I mean, when you start looking into Qatari football history, you realize that there's a kind of before globalization and after globalization. Before globalization, you know, before the start of the 21st century, or kind of modern version of globalization, because globalization is being going on for hundreds of years. But you see locally produced players from poor backgrounds paying on the streets with no shoes because Qatar, even a few decades before it was founded, I mean, there was a statistic I came across recently that something like 25% of Qatari women died in childbirth. You know, and this is within, you know, within one or two generation of becoming the richest country on earth. And you realize that there are players and stories of winning local competitions, winning Middle Eastern competitions, winning Asian competitions that briefly for a”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would even say that it's true for Qatar because one of the things that I've always, I mean, I guess maybe it's being English, being a West Ham fan, growing up on like FA Cup third round giant kid, even the phrase giant killings, right? We love an underdog. And one of my, I've always been attracted to the stories of the underdogs. And, you know, my second book was 31-0, which is about literally the worst national teams in the world trying to qualify. But what you realize is that when you see a team like San Marino, right, or a team like American Samoa or Chamstered City, where I'm from, right? You know, these are tiny teams and you think, oh, they've not won anything. They've never been at the elite level. They've produced very few players. And you think that means there's no football history. But when you look under the bonnet of the culture that surrounds it, even in very small places, and Qatar is a place like, you know, the size the population was when I was there. Population was the size of a kind of medium-sized British city.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT