“Above all, the 2022 World Cup highlighted the shifting contours of a global order that, for all the Scandinavian and German hand-wringing during the tournament, is less centered on “the West” than it has been at any point since the emergence of the postwar international architecture in 1945. The process of geopolitical rebalancing has been underway for more than a decade; but given the Gulf Arab states’ pivotal role in energy and geopolitics—and increasingly in soccer and sports more broadly—2022 may eventually be seen as the year that confirmed their centrality to the global order that is currently taking shape.” 

-Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Qatar’s Successful World Cup Signals a New Era in the Gulf and Beyond [Arab Center Washington]