In Qatar, at the El-Bayt stadium in the city of El-Khaur, the World Cup match between the national teams of Qatar and Ecuador began. This meeting was the first at the 2022 World Cup. Prior to that, the stadium hosted the opening ceremony of the tournament. The game is served by the Italian team of referees headed by Daniele Orsato, Interfax reports .
For the first time in the history of the World Cup, the World Cup takes place in the Middle East in the fall. The decision to postpone the tournament for this period is due to the intense heat in the summer.
Qatar hosts the World Cup after Russia, which hosted the World Cup in 2018. The Russian national team was excluded from the number of participants in the play-offs in the framework of the European selection. The sanctions against the Russians were FIFA's response to the war in Ukraine. A total of 32 teams will take part in the tournament. They are divided into eight groups of four teams each. The top two teams from each group will advance to the 1/8 finals.
On November 18, Qatar was accused of bribing eight players from the Ecuador national team. This was stated on Twitter by a journalist and political commentator, regional head of the British Center for Middle East Studies Amjad Taha.
“Qatar bribed eight Ecuadorian players for $7.4 million to lose the match (0-1, goal in the second half). Five insiders from Qatar and Ecuador confirmed this. We hope this is a lie. We expect that the dissemination of this information will affect the result. The world must confront corruption in FIFA,” wrote Taha.