QATAR: Hundreds of Pakistani proud students and expats in Qatar are contributing tirelessly to FIFA World Cup 2022 for making this month-long hectic event a smashing success.
Along with many students who are enthusiastically assisting in engineering, IT, hospitality, and broadcasting for the success of this major event, the Pakistani community in Qatar is also supporting this most-awaited and watched tournament.
Though the Pakistan football team could not make it to an international FIFA event, however, the country always remained in news for producing high-quality footballs for international teams and events in collaboration with Adidas and Forward Sports, a Sialkot-based local sports products producer.
Talking to this news agency, a media professional, Maryam Khalid, who works as a commentary assistant for Qatar’s broadcasting department, believes that her experience as an intern at the Qatar FIFA event will help her achieve her future objectives.
To a query, Maryam said, “We were trained by professionals, and FIFA staff always remains attached to us to resolve any problem beyond our understanding.”
Muhammad Saad, another overseas Pakistani, participating in the FIFA World Cup 2022 as a volunteer in the Legal Department, said his selection was a great pleasure and an exposure to get involved in such a historic event in the Gulf.
“In layman’s terms, my role is to monitor any illegal commercial activity and report it to the relevant.” The opportunity, he said had provided him the confidence to play a lead role.
An intern Abu Bakar Majeed Bin Abdul Rab, a student of BSc Computer Engineering, said he was assisting the Host Broadcasting Services, a company that has managed some of the most prestigious sporting events around the world including 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018 and the current 2022 edition of the FIFA World Cup.
“Being an IT Assistant meant that my work started well before the World Cup started, and it will end a week after the World Cup reaches its pinnacle. Along with my fellow interns and supervisors, initially, we had to set up and distribute more than 750 corporate laptops and more than 2,500 corporate phones to incoming World Cup staff from around the world, while being available to solve any IT-related problems and working with our supervisors to code applications that will make operations for the staff easier,” he added.
Abu Bakar said FIFA World Cup 2022 being hosted in Qatar was not only a moment of utmost pride for the State of Qatar but for the entire Muslim world. “The nation currently holding the greatest sporting event on the planet in full swing,” he remarked. However, he regretted that the Pakistan Football team could not become a part of this tourney and hoped the national team one day would make it into the FIFA cup as he believed, “The nation has true potential to excel in any field of life”.
Adnan Khan, a PhD student at Hamad bin Khalifa University said, “Soccer unites people of different cultures and backgrounds. As an expatriate living in Qatar, we all have a responsibility and shared goals of making this world cup memorable for everyone who comes here to witness this extraordinary event.”
Shaukat Chandna in a statement to Qatar Tribune representing the Pakistani community said that every country in the world, not only football-playing ones, was contributing in some form or other to make this the ‘best-ever’ sporting extravaganza of our times and life. “Pakistan has contributed in a very significant manner by crafting the finest footballs with machines and hands. Smile everyone, enjoy the experience of a lifetime and have fun.”
It is pertinent to mention here that an uncountable number of Pakistani interns/volunteers and residents have unanimously and voluntarily extended their services to the authorities in Qatar “to make the FIFA World Cup 2022 a big success”.
