RAWR by Webrepublic lives and breathes sport and entertainment. Helping our clients grow relies on detailed knowledge of the sport, the environment, and innovation driving the future. Now the dust has settled, read our report from the ground in Qatar...

Boohoo - woe is me, etc. I wasn’t forced to watch every single match of the biggest global sporting event in the world - but I did it nevertheless. RAWR supported FIFA on the ground in Qatar and from around the world. In the process, it handed me my dream on a plate: watch the best players in the world play football - and get paid for it. As a massive football fan, this created a beautiful blur between work and play.

Qatar’s national team has been playing football for more than 100 years, and they have some of the best players in the region (just ask the AFC Asian Cup participants - Qatar was the last winner in 2019, beating Japan 3-1 in the Final). However, when it comes to hosting a major event like the FIFA World Cup, that’s another story. I watched every single minute of the tournament - here are my thoughts on what I experienced:

The country did an incredible job putting together what for all intents and purposes was the best organised tournament in its history. There was little sign of trouble from fans during matches at this World Cup, probably connected to the alcohol ban inside stadiums - if anything, there was perhaps more enthusiasm than we usually see at tournaments held elsewhere around the globe. Stadium disruption was an issue once or twice but then again, it always is when you have 80,000 people crammed into one place with limited access points. It may not be something that’s specific to football though; any major event will inevitably see queues for entry turn into traffic jams. Qatar did an impressive job on limiting problems operationally.

I was struck by how good the stadiums are. With no shortage of money, these are state of the art venues, designed to be cool and comfortable at all times. They have cooling technology (including misters and fans) installed in every single stadium. Sustainability may have been less a topic when the tournament was awarded in 2008, but efforts have at least been made to repurpose the venues, and also attract new events over the coming years to use them. The completely dismantable Stadium 974 should serve as a model for future venue building.

I believe the best games are played by the world’s best players, and when the best players are fresh. If the right conditions aren’t in place to keep them performing at their best then we shouldn’t hold a tournament that relies on them - having a World Cup in the middle of a domestic season was dislikable at best to a football puritan such as myself (on my high horse), but having seen how much my beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers were struggling in the Premier League, a break couldn’t have really come at a better time (I know, biassed).

When you consider how difficult it is for players to perform at their best when they are tired, injured or feeling unwell, then it becomes clear why we need to be careful about what conditions we expose them to during a tournament like this one. However, players seemed fresh, as mentioned - all stadiums were air conditioned, water breaks occasionally took place on sweltering days, and no signs of cardiovascular related injuries or illnesses occurred at the tournament.

This was the best quality of football tournament I’ve ever watched in my lifetime. Granted, that only means I’m comparing six of them now (Generation Z has arrived), but the level has never been higher. Those big European and South American nations suddenly had to think and prepare for teams in Asia and Africa, rather than turning up and hoping to casually stroll through on talent. The eventual tournament winners - Argentina - learnt this pretty early on with what I can only describe as something that should be considered a national holiday in Saudi Arabia for the next millennium (or so).

As all kits, players, balls and pitches started to blend into one another by the end of the Group Stage, some matches had become pretty forgettable, but I still found myself gripped by the entirety of the format and more specifically - scouting the next big thing. I think the magic of the FIFA World Cup is partly about providing a platform for a lesser known player to make headlines. Think James Rodríguez in 2014 (and wow, THAT goal against Uruguay) and Aleksandr Golovin in 2018. For me, in 2022, this was Azzedine Ounahi, who according to Statista, has increased his value from 3.5 million (pre-tournament) to a recent rumoured 30 million euro offer from the Premier League.

Speaking of Morocco - 2022 proved that there is a bright future for Africa in world football. It’s no wonder that national sports leagues such as the NBA are also flocking to invest more into the continent to develop a new hotbed for potential talent. As the first African nation to ever reach the semi-final stage of a FIFA World Cup, they captured the hearts and minds of people across the world: everyone loves an underdog.

The technology trialled at the FWC broke new ground too. Semi-automated video assistant referee made for more clear offside calls and less contentious, opinionated decisions. The 3D animation made sense and cleared up decisions both to fans in the stadiums and watching on television (Premier League - take note!). The new technology uses 12 dedicated tracking cameras mounted underneath the roof of the stadium to track the ball and up to 29 data points of each individual player, 50 times per second, calculating their exact position on the pitch. The 29 collected data points include all limbs and extremities that are relevant for making offside calls. It’s a fascinating innovation in a sport which perhaps needs to continue to improve the speed in which decisions are made.

My job is to help the brands that sponsor the tournament get the maximum value from their involvement. However, sponsorship and partnerships have evolved over time from casual organisational and tournament sponsors to include the hero-isation of the world’s best football players. Neymar Jr., Brazil’s captain, boasted an impressive 36 individual sponsorships heading into the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Among them are brands such as Puma, Netflix, Qatar Airways and Red Bull - who has been his sponsor since 2016. His deal with Puma, which is said to be the largest individual sports sponsorship in history, earns him an estimated $30 million per year.

His social media following is a reflection of his fame, with a total of over 340 million followers. In the last 12 months, he posted 127 times, receiving engagement from over 71 million people, with an average engagement rate of 3.6 million per brand and over 400 thousand per post. If you combined the individual brands sponsoring Neymar Jr, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Lionel Messi, this would total over 80 different partnerships. Brands are tuned in to the shift of generations, and often see the best way to activate their product is to invest into these individual heroes.

Whilst working with RAWR for sponsors and watching goal-after-goal fly into the back of the onion bag, day-after-day, I realised that the FIFA World Cup never really turns itself off when the sun goes down. It’s a carnival of culture filled with passionate international fans and brands wanting the best experience of what the top level of sport brings - and this means everyone is incredibly exhausted in which it feels like you’ve just completed a metaphorical marathon. Sure - the few hours of watching those blessed moments on the football pitch are worth its weight in gold, but the work behind-the-scenes to create the magic for the worldwide public to enjoy is often under-appreciated. So, a toast to those who make the FIFA World Cup what it is every four years. Thank you for your hard work.

For many years now, Qatar has been at the centre of a global debate about hosting the FIFA World Cup. I hope that by showing how we can use technology to tackle football’s biggest problems - everything from heat stress to automated decision-making - we can show that it’s possible for us to have a tournament here in 2022 that’s safe for everyone involved. Focusing on the football on the pitch: it was outstanding. One of the best quality FIFA World Cup tournaments that we’ve probably ever had… and Qatar couldn’t have asked for much more.