Opinion | Soft power sponsorships: how Qatar uses sport to promote a positive picture to the outside world

Over the last decade, Qatar has become synonymous with sport, albeit at times contentiously. The small Gulf nation’s rapid ascendancy to a position of influence in world sport has not been accidental. In its 2030 National Vision and accompanying development strategy, sport is explicitly mentioned as a vehicle through which Qatar can achieve a multiplicity of goals.

The country is one of the world’s biggest oil and gas producers, which has enabled it to accumulate considerable currency reserves. However, Qatar’s economy is overly dependent upon carbon fuel deposits and associated revenues, a fact that has recently been brought into sharp focus by globally stagnant oil prices. Furthermore, at some point in the future, its oil and gas supplies will eventually run out.

Doha’s strategic decision-makers have therefore been thinking ahead, and see an investment in sport as being part of Qatar’s post-oil and gas future. Specifically, sport is viewed as a means through which to generate both economic and socio-cultural benefits. Sport can be a source of jobs and export earnings, and address issues such as health, well-being and social cohesion among the country’s disparate domestic population.

As a relatively new state (Qatar only gained independence from Britain in 1971), and with a population of less than three million, the country also sees sport as a way of building profile and presence. It provides Qatar with a unique proposition, a positioning statement and a way of engaging key target audiences around the world. Hence, Brand Qatar has quickly propelled itself into the global consciousness through, for example, its successful bid to host football’s 2022 World Cup.

Closely connected with the country’s sense of nation branding, sport is openly acknowledged by its government as being an important instrument of soft power in facilitating Qatar’s development.

While Qatar’s event hosting strategy has most obviously embodied the notion of soft power, even though it has sometimes backfired, rather less attention has been paid to other elements of the country’s soft power strategy in sport. Doha has been building up an extensive government portfolio of investment assets and business deals, some of which have been very high profile. These include, for instance, the acquisition of French football club Paris Saint-Germain and the subsequent acquisition of Brazilian player Neymar for a world record transfer fee.