DOHA, Qatar — For Qatar, the World Cup draw Friday is the bell signaling the last lap of a race that began more than two decades ago. That’s when the Gulf state — poor in square miles, population and (back then) name recognition, but rich in per capita GDP and ambition — decided to make sports one of the central planks of its development.
Sports would raise the country’s profile, drive business opportunity, provide some sort of legacy for the day when, inevitably, the oil and natural gas run out. It was just one prong of the strategy — security (the U.S. military’s Gulf Central Command is in Doha), media (Al Jazeera) and education were also priorities — but in some ways, it was the most significant.
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The most significant…
