FIFA world cup in Saudi Arabia
- why is a desert country going sports-crazy?
Miles long sandy deserts. No rivers or lakes. Lots of petrol underground. That’s old Saudi Arabia for you.
F1 car racing tournaments on its roads. Ronaldo joins a Saudi-owned football club. Professional golfers from around the world come to Saudi Arabia to play golf. That’s new Saudi Arabia for you.
In this week’s ‘Lighter Side’ from the ‘What’s new today’ podcast team, we’ve got an interesting story of why Saudi Arabia wants to host a FIFA World Cup soon.
If this is the first time you are reading an email newsletter from the ‘Lighter Side’ - hello and welcome! This is Sangeetha, the host of ‘What’s new today’ podcast and I write one story for children and older children (yes, there are some children as old as a 100) about interesting things from the real world.
What’s this you say - FIFA something?
For those who have no interest in sports, FIFA is a group of people trying to get eleven players on a rectangular piece of ground to kick a round object around. Some say - FIFA is the world’s largest football governing authority. For those who love football and video-games, FIFA is one of the most popular video games of all times. We did a fabulously-fun podcast on this subject (FIFA- the video game) earlier this year. Two primary schoolers (5th graders) chatted with someone older (Vinith Muralidharan - he has been playing video games for almost 30 years now!). You can click that button called ‘Why is FIFA the game sooo much fun’, to listen to this episode.
What’s this about Saudi Arabia and FIFA world cups?
News is that Saudi Arabia has won the bid to host the 2034 football world cup. This means lots and lots of people from around the world will fly to Saudi Arabia, stay in hotels in that country, buy lots of popcorn and pizzas in their restaurants and also spend money traveling within the country. Naturally, they will also be sitting in one of those huge football stadiums, watching football matches and cheering their favourite football teams.
Quick history lesson: Camel racing has been one of Saudi Arabia’s favourite pastimes. Football has become popular only recently. I tried scratching my head to find a connection between camels and football, and all I could come up with was that both can kick up a lot of dust when they try to move around - I mean the camels and the footballers’ shoes.
Sidenote: Camel racing is super fun. Imagine a group of camels running hither-thither across a sandy patch. But the camels get bored very quickly. So the race lasts for about 10 mins. Football players, on the other hand, get bored a little less. They run around for a full 90 mins!
Quick lesson in money: Saudi Arabia has been earning most of its money by selling a black liquid from underneath its ground. Some call it crude oil. Some call it the lifeline of cars and aeroplanes. Unfortunately for Saudi Arabia (and thankfully for Mother Earth), the country will run out of this black liquid in a few years. How will Saudi-Arabia earn money once all that crude oil is exhausted?
The leaders of the country sat around a large round table and put on their thinking hats. Someone asked - what can bring a lot of money into this country? To find the answer to this question - they tuned into Youtube.
Boxing, car racing, golf, football and cricket - these were amongst the most popular sports that everyone was watching on Youtube. That’s how Saudi Arabia came to decide that they could shift from crude oil to sports, and earn money by attracting tourists to their country every year.
Why don’t they host cricket? Saudi Arabia was never directly ruled by Britain. So it has never been a big cricket crazy country. As I was typing this sentence, I was trying to imagine a spin bowler trying his spin on a patch of desert land. Would it even work?
Football on the other hand is quite popular amongst the youngsters of Saudi Arabia. I guess it is a little easier to kick a football across sandy deserts. So it became a natural choice for the country’s leaders to put their money in. That’s why in 2034, you’re going to watch the FIFA world cup in Saudi Arabia.
On that note, if you are a Virat Kohli fan, we hosted a 25-question quiz on Virat Kohli last week. It was super-fun. Click here to listen to the Kohli quiz. This link will take you to another page, where you will need to click on ‘Play’ to listen to the quiz.
Ta-da! I am looking for ideas for topics for ‘What’s new today’ podcast? Do you have any? Please leave them in the comments below? See you next week!