DOHA, Qatar — Luxury hotels featured prominently in Qatar’s master plan to host the 2022 World Cup, and in the more than a decade since the tiny Gulf country was awarded the hosting rights to men’s soccer’s biggest championship, five-star accommodations have risen alongside the city’s high-rise towers at an astonishing rate.
That frenzy only intensified this year amid a desperate rush to be ready for the start of the tournament on Sunday. But as visitors started arriving, it became clear that Qatar was not quite ready for at least one group of its most demanding guests.
Last week, only a few days before the most senior executives of FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, were set to jet into Doha for meetings ahead of a World Cup 12 years in the making, local officials delivered the bad news: The five-star hotel picked to house FIFA’s leadership — a group infamous for its affection for perks, its healthy appetite for life’s finer things and its six-figure salaries — would not be ready for them.