Qatar policy of buying handball team earns no favours at Rio 2016
The Qatar handball team has been hired from around the world and Bertrand Roine won a world championship medal with France before going to Doha but it cut little ice at Rio 2016
Welcome, then, to the Future (Arena) for a glimpse into the direction global sport is heading. A complex brew of politics, globalisation, sport and money has been distilled and poured into a hastily built and brightly colouredbowl.
A Qatar handball team constructed at great expense by importing players from around the world as part of the Gulf states ambitious vault on to the world sporting stage is playing a French outfit that are aiming for their third Olympic gold in a row.
In the stands, half empty at this early hour, a sizeable contingent of French fans are waving Tricolours and chanting: Allez Les Bleus. Down on the court, the league of nations Qatar squad containing only three players born there is lustily singing the national anthem.
The majority of them have taken advantage of the lax interpretation of nationality laws in handball to become naturalised in double quick time having been signed to play for Qatari clubs. One of the Qatar players, Bertrand Roine, won a world championship medal with France in 2011 before switching to Doha to play for a club side, Lekhwiya Sports.
Meanwhile five of the France squad, including the brilliant Luc Abalo who resembled Plastic Man as he twisted and turned to score seven goals, play for Paris Saint-Germain owned, like their footballing cousin, by Qatar Sports Investments. That deal was part of a growing entente cordiale between the interests of the two countries.
Missing, according to his goalkeeper Danijel Saric (born in Bosnia-Herzegovina), due to a small injury Roine had to watch as Qatar, who won their opening match against Croatia and were runners-up when they hosted the world championships in 2015, were blown away in the second half.
For some of the French players who demonstrated stunning speed, agility and vision to prevail 35-20 after a tightly fought first half there is clear resentment at the moneybags approach taken by Qatar. Every time we play Qatar, thats not the vision we have. They can do it, its allowed.
But we take great enjoyment from beating this team, especially in the Olympic Games where you come to represent your country in that spirit, said Valentin Porte, a 25-year-old right-back who plays his club handball for Montpellier.
The handball fans are happy when Qatar are beaten because they have that spirit. We play for the love of the game; they play for the money. Everyone has their own view of it.
Others are a bit more reticent, preferring to let their hands do the talking. Frances captain and goalkeeper Vincent Gerard said afterwards: We concentrate on the players were playing against. Thats how the rules are.
There is a multitude of wider issues at play here that would take a whole book to unpack.
But in purely sporting terms the gut-feel test is often a surprisingly effective one. Along the continuum of nationality laws, football sits at one end and sports such as volleyball and handball at the other.
Qatar would not be able to do what they have done in handball for the 2022 football World Cup, hence their much longer-term plan involving the Aspire Academy to, they claim, develop their own talent.
It is never going to be a black and white debate, as the so-called Plastic Brits row before the last Olympics proved. The table tennis competition here is stacked full of Chinese players who have taken up citizenship elsewhere, while the track and field competition next week will throw up more troubling examples.
But when almost an entire team is made up of naturalised players, questions are bound to be asked about why a federation is effectively encouraging the practice of switching nations for cash.
Last years bizarre handball world championships in Doha might provide part of the answer.
There Qatar stormed to the final amid a string of controversial refereeing decisions. From the stands they were cheered on by a contingent of Spanish handball fans who had enjoyed an all-expenses paid jaunt to Doha on condition that they backed the home team.
It was just one event in a jaw-dropping run of international sporting events across almost every Olympic sport that has characterised Qatars dash for success.
Yann Hildwein, a journalist for LEquipe who specialises in handball and volleyball, feels uncomfortable about Qatars brazen shopping spree but says the situation is more complex than it might first appear. There is respect for the players on the court and the coaches. But this is not the national team. I dont think the international federation care about that, he says.
For Roine, though, he points out that when he moved to Qatar in 2013 he could not get a contract in the French first division. For him, it has worked out. I can see why he did it. Of course it will be strange during the anthems, Hildwein says.
The squad, all of whom play their club handball in Qatar, hail variously from Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia and Cuba. Many have previously played for other nations. All make a far better living in the Gulf than they might at home.
Some, such as the Egypt-born pivot Hassen Mabrouk, have even played in the Olympics before for other countries.
Some of the other players on the Qatar side are from countries perhaps unlikely to ever qualify a handball team for the Olympics. Ameen Zakkar, for example, is from Syria.
Nobody thinks about naturalisation. This is a question for journalists. But we want to play handball, nothing else, said Saric, the former Barcelona goalkeeper who now faces a crucial match against Tunisia on Thursday.
What can you get in Europe that you cant get in Qatar? Its sunny all the time, he added, perhaps a touch defensively. Roine told French journalists afterwards that it was a dream to play in the Olympics and that he was very happy to be there. But pulling away afterwards on the team bus, he looked a little sad.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/09/qatar-buying-handball-players-france-rio-2016