ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to analyse FIFA’s recognition of the Qatar Football Association (QFA) and Qatar’s football team participation in first Arabian Gulf Cup as an attempt at nation-building through sport before the country’s independence in 1971. The primary written sources used in this chapter are documents (letters, telegrams, etc.) consulted via FIFA’s archive and also at the State of Qatar official legislation documentation (decrees, constitution, etc.). Qatar had its political and economic foreign relations controlled by Britain until 1971 without a mission civilisatrice which gave a relative ‘freedom’ to develop its sociocultural practices including modern sport. Once Qatari authorities placed football as a tool to assert a regional sovereignty and national identity by participating in the 1970 Arabian Gulf Cup in Bahrain, it faced cultural imperialism by adapting its sport internal organisation (at least on paper) to become ‘acceptable’ at the Western football world. Thus, the recognition of the QFA by FIFA can be considered an example of Qatar’s first attempt to nation-building through football, learning to ‘negotiate’ its internal national identity aspirations with the international sport governance system. The national identity display during the 1970 Gulf Cup contributed to the move away of the Qatar union with other British protectorates to form a ‘Federation of Arab since it could represent an abdication of national symbols (including the national football team) which had been already incorporated in the Qatari ‘imagined community’ before the actual declaration of Qatar as a sovereign nation.
