At Play the Game 2025, Abdullah Ibhais—the Jordanian whistleblower jailed for refusing to spin migrant abuses ahead of FIFA's 2022 World Cup—took the stage and completely exposed Qatar’s strategy of media manipulation and surveillance of journalists ahead of the quadrennial tournament.
“For them, the World Cup - before anything else - was a reputational campaign that they spent more than 300 billion dollars to achieve,” Ibhais said.
Ibhais is a former media manager for the Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (the body responsible for organising the 2022 FIFA World Cup), and he was arrested in November 2019 shortly after he criticised the Qatari authorities’ handling of a workers’ protest, highlighting mistreatment of migrant labourers.
He was accused of bribery, misuse of state funds, and leaking confidential information related to a tender process. Ibhais denied all charges, but nevertheless, he was found guilty of them in April 2021 at a Doha criminal court, including a charge of causing harm to the Supreme Committee. He was initially sentenced to five years in prison, which was later reduced to three years, and he was released in March 2025.
And yet, he insists he is not a hero, noting that he, too, believed in the mission to deliver the Arab world’s first World Cup.
In his role as the committee’s media...
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