Mixed emotions among Welsh faithful ahead of World Cup

Neville Southall refuses to travel to Doha. Ian Rush is going with an open mind.

“The World Cup is there, people are going to go,” said Rush, speaking as part of a Wales FA delegation that met the Irish Chamber of Commerce in Dublin this week. “This situation should have been dealt with when the draw was made, but it wasn’t.”

In fact, the situation surrounding Qatar’s long-established record on human rights was known back in 2010 when the Fifa Executive Committee decided to award them the World Cup.

“I feel for Welsh supporters,” Rush continued. “They have waited since 1958 and to go to Qatar to watch the World Cup. I would have liked to see it in Europe or somewhere like that but I think we will know more when we get out there. I think people are guessing at the moment but I think it is a strange place to hold a World Cup.”

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Rush, an ambassador for Liverpool FC and Welsh football, need not guess about migrant worker abuse or the fact that same-sex relations in Qatar are punishable by one to three years in prison.

Southall, as a patron for the Rainbow Toffees, knows enough to tweet out an exclusive story on inews.co.uk about LGBT people in Qatar being hunted via catfishing, with one man stating he was raped, arrested and deported.

“Why are we going there in the first place, what’s the criteria? I can’t find anybody who knows what the criteria is,” says Southall. “The players have to go, it is a World Cup, they have to go to inspire people, but the fundamental problem is how we got there in the first place.

“I will never go there. Because of the way they treat people, particularly the LGBT stuff.

“I don’t want to push my views on to another country, because they got their own culture, but I still don’t think it is right that we go there because we are condoning what they are doing, with the migrant workers as well.”

Homesexuality was only decriminalised in Ireland in 1993, while Southall remembers the treatment of openly gay footballer Justin Fashanu in the 1980s.

“When I grew up I didn’t know anybody who was gay. Well, I probably did, but nobody ever spoke about it when I played football.

“The first time I was made really aware was Justin Fashanu. We played a pre-season friendly at Hearts and he was taken off after 20 minutes and the abuse he took was absolutely disgusting. Absolutely horrendous.

“Why are we going? Give me some good reasons why we are going, then fine.”

‘Rubble’ outside hotel

Doha is smaller than county Dublin so the logistics around holding four matches every day until the knockouts stages, with hundreds of thousands of fans either arriving into the country on day trips or using the newly built Metro line, while every other squad travels to and from their training bases, remain a concern.

“When we went to Doha for the draw,” said Noel Mooney, the Welsh FA chief executive, “I was struck by our hotel being central, which we are fine with, but the journey at 4pm out to the training ground took a long time. That was difficult on a normal working day but we have to work on the basis that Fifa, who have a lot of talented people in the middle of all that, with the Qataris will get this bang on.

“A Welsh person over there rang me to say there was some rubble outside the front of our hotel but everyone assures me: ‘Don’t worry, it is going to be bang on when you get there.’ We assume everything will be all right on the night.”

On the Euro 2028 bid, Mooney was unable to confirm how many automatic qualifiers Uefa will allow from the five nations — England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland.

“We will aim towards a couple of places,” said Mooney. “Our preference would be the Fifa rankings.”

Wales are ranked 19th in the world, 21 places ahead of Scotland, and 30 ahead of the Republic of Ireland who sit 49th.