Accessibility at the 2022 FIFA World Cup

Joeita Gupta:
I'm Joeita Gupta and this is The Pulse. The FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar was played from November 20th to December 18th. The FIFA World Cup is widely regarded as football's greatest showpiece, and this tournament played in 2022 was the first World Cup event held in the Arab world. At an estimated cost of about $220 billion, it is the most expensive World Cup held to date, though Qatari officials dispute the final figure. 
The FIFA World Cup 2022 was also the first World Cup event to provide sensory rooms for people with autism. FIFA also ensured that all the stadiums and venues were accessible to fans with physical disabilities. Additionally, dedicated tickets were set aside for people with disabilities. Today we look back on accessibility at the FIFA World Cup 2022. It's time to put your finger on The Pulse.
Hello, and welcome to the Pulse on AMI Audio. I'm Joeita Gupta, joining you from the Accessible Media Studios in Toronto. My hair is pulled back in a bun. I'm wearing a pair of headphones. They're black over-the-ear headphones, and I'm in a t-shirt or a blouse that has three-quarter length sleeves, a square neck, and is red and black striped.
I often find it intriguing when people talk about the legacy that large-scale sporting events will leave behind. We often hear that if we have the opportunity to host such and such games or such and such a big event we're going to end up with improved transit, improved housing, improved amenities in the host city, and most importantly for the purposes of our conversation improved accessibility in the city that plays host to whether it's the Olympics or the World Cup.
And so what often happens is when we have these big sporting events we talk about them and then we forget about them. But I wanted to look back on the FIFA World Cup 2022, the first held in the Arab world, and check in with somebody in Qatar to find out how things are a year from when the World Cup was held. It's been about 10 months now since the FIFA World Cup took place, and I'm delighted to welcome Ahmed Habib, who's an accessibility expert, consultant and activist, who's joining us today from Qatar. Hello, and welcome. Thank you so much for taking some time to speak to me on The Pulse today.

Ahmed Habib:
Hi Joeita. Thank you for having me.

Joeita Gupta:
Tell me about what life was like for people with disabilities in Qatar before the World Cup was announced. Was accessibility a priority or was it something that had fallen behind?

Ahmed Habib:
I probably spent most of my life in Toronto. I was able to come to Qatar long before the World Cup was meant to happen to work on accessibility. And despite, of course, varying degrees of success with creating accessible spaces between Canada, I saw that many of the same issues that face disabled people are universal and they fundamentally lie in the way disabled people are viewed in society still to a large extent, to people in workplaces, educational spaces and public offices throughout the world, whether it's Canada or here prescribed to a medical model of disabled people, seeing them as being incomplete or invalid or incapable, whereas they need to be looking at disability from a social model that places the onus of the disability on an inaccessible society, therefore saying that when a society is accessible someone's disability no longer has that much of a bearing on their ability to live an independent life.
That was definitely the case wherever I travelled, whether it's in my native Iraq or Toronto, a place that I call home as well. Having said that, throughout the world there is an increasing amount of awareness around disability. This, of course, has translated to very differing things for people, depending on where they live, depending on what kind of resources are available, depending on what kind of buy-in there is from the government and public services, and even to a large extent private sector employers, et cetera. 
So when I did come to Qatar I was able to work with a very talented group of young people to establish an assistive technology center. It was the first of its kind in the region, where we were able to help out hundreds of disabled people by providing them with the tools, training and support necessary to get connected to the digital world, something that we really firmly believe in.
You opened up the show with the legacy of sporting events, and just like anything else that also varies from one city to another, and some cities have been able to maybe leverage the event more than others. At the end of the day we're speaking about large events that are in need of tremendous public funding, that divert public funding to them, so the legacy aspect is actually much, much more important than the actual event itself. At the end of the day it's either a sporting event or a football tournament, but what really matters is how has this event been used by public funding, keeping in mind, of course, there's going to be very, very profitable corporate sponsors as well? How is all that coming together to bring about a positive legacy to the people that live in the city or that will continue to visit it in the future?
As you mentioned in the beginning, the World Cup in Qatar featured a lot of really important accessibility features for the tournament itself, but I think more importantly the real legacy that will be left behind will be the fundamental shift that we're beginning to see across the world, particularly the Arab world, with regards to moving away from the medical model towards the social model of disability. So, all in all, my experience as a disabled person varies from day to day depending on the level of public service that I'm receiving and my interactions with people and society. 
But without a doubt things are moving throughout the Arab world in terms of increased awareness around the issues of disability. But it's not to say that there's a need to be over-celebratory, because there's still a lot of work to be done, much like there is a lot of work to be done in a city like Toronto, which to this day in 2024 almost that the public transportation system is not entirely accessible, for example, whereas here in Doha-

Joeita Gupta:
Yes. That's right. How did you get involved with the FIFA World Cup and its organizing efforts? Was it that you were interested in accessibility that led you to this opportunity, or are you just a big football fan and this was your way of getting involved? 

Ahmed Habib:
Yes. Actually all of the above. My previous experience as a policy expert in accessibility here, working with assistive technology for over a decade obviously allowed me to be able to support accessibility efforts at the World Cup. I've also done work with companies like Netflix and others to make sure that their content or new content that's being developed is also in line with the social model portraying people with disabilities in a positive, empowered light, stepping away from the cliche portrayals of disabled people, whether they're seen as superheroes or super angelic, or one or the other, creating flawed characters that are the linchpin of the story as opposed to something that, or someone rather, that exists on the periphery of the plot. 
So that experience I had, but in addition to that I also work in the field of media production. I create films and write press releases and create digital content, and it was that role that brought me into the World Cup. My primary role was to create awareness content and write press releases, but obviously, me being a disabled person myself and my previous experience in accessibility allowed me to also work on the accessibility front as well.

Joeita Gupta:
Now you said earlier, and I loved the recognition that what these games leave behind hopefully is a legacy where you have a shift or a change in attitudes and perceptions for people with disabilities, and I think that is the really important takeaway. But just so that we understand, because a lot of us weren't able to make it to Doha and we weren't able to make it to see the games in person, we've just heard about how these games were supposed to be one of the more accessible World Cup events out there. What were some of the ways in which the games were disability inclusive and accessible?

Ahmed Habib:
One of the coolest things and the first things that was done to ensure greater accessibility at the World Cup was to establish something called the Accessibility Forum that brought together disabled people and the organizations that represent them, experts in the field, large public service providers like the public transit network and other public spaces in the country. Brought them together in a forum that met regularly that identified needs that went beyond the tournament in the country, because the idea was to create a seamless user journey for any disabled person that was coming to watch matches, but also have the ability to obviously enjoy what the city has to offer and make use of all the transportation options that were available as well. Obviously, the adage that we know from the United Nations convention on the rights of people with disabilities is nothing about us without us, and that was something that was really fundamental to the planning and the work that went into the tournament.
This translated into creating a fundamental change in a very small country, where we now have the entire public transportation system accessible, there's greater availability of accessible bathrooms in public spaces, curb cuts, all of the stuff that was required. If someone is blind they'll have tactile floor indicators in all the subway stations. And we really saw that that ripple effect was happening throughout the city, and that was as a result of disabled people saying, "Hey, listen, the tournament's great, but we really want to make sure that accessibility is addressed on all fronts and not just what's going to happen in and around stadiums." So that was something that was phenomenal. 
In addition to that, during the actual games, like you mentioned earlier, there were sensory rooms provided for neuro-divergent kids. That was at three of the eight stadiums that enabled people, for example, who are on the autistic spectrum to enjoy the match from a quieter place should they choose so. They can be in a room that's outfitted in the technology and staffed with people that know how to use the technology. And all those tickets were available at a price that was not discriminatory, but in fact at the cheapest prices that were available in the stadium.
In addition to that, there was audio descriptive commentary for blind fans for the first time in the Arabic language. In order to deliver the commentary there was approximately two years of building local capacities to train commentators and making sure that their work is audio-scripted in the Arabic language. That was done with a local university here as well. This creates obviously a pool of commentators that are available to do audio description for future events, but again, not only within the sports realm. This also includes conferences, exhibitions, art spaces, museums and other spaces as well.
There was work that was done with the deaf community to create content around the tournament in Arabic sign language. The deaf community in the Arab world, much like other places in the world, suffers tremendously from marginalization from the educational system. There's a large number of deaf people that have difficulty reading or writing and still rely on sign language to communicate, so that was a concerted effort that was made as well. 
The idea was that disabled people will have the right to enjoy football. I mean seeing fans that are obsessed with the sport. As you may know, in Canada football or soccer might not be their number one sport, but you can imagine around the world fans that were coming in from Argentina and Mexico and Senegal and Cameroon and Korea and Japan and all these different places were obsessed with the game and were able to enjoy it just like everyone else, and at the end of the day there was an accessible infrastructure that was left and there was a lot of training and awareness building and capacity building in the field as well.

Joeita Gupta:
Was there a single moment that stands out for you as being particularly memorable? Maybe something that happened during a match or something that happened before or after a match? If you think back on your experience, what is the one moment that really is a fond memory for you?

Ahmed Habib:
Well, I mean just before the tournament I received a message on the World Cup Instagram from a mother in Denmark. Her and her son were planning to come and watch Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo. The son is a wheelchair user, and they had never travelled to this part of the world with a wheelchair before and they're obviously concerned about how to be able to get a wheelchair-accessible taxi at the airport and the hotels, et cetera, and I was able to reassure them, reinforce to them that everything was in place. Then when they arrived I was also able to get them tickets to a Portugal match, which they didn't have. And most importantly, we were able to sneak in and meet and greet between Noah and Ronaldo as well, which of course was a really huge moment for them, for the young man to see that kind of impact.
But ultimately, to be honest, Joeita, what really made this World Cup different to other ones is that for the first time millions and millions of people from the so-called Middle East, the Arab world, and south Asia, were able to watch matches for the first time because of its geographic location, the way it was accessible, and its general overall proximity to people, so it was a really lovely experience.

Joeita Gupta:
Yes. And because I lived in India, if you wanted to watch matches you'd have to get up at all hours of the night, even if you're watching them on TV. At least this way you were watching matches at a reasonable time of day, even if you were watching them from home, if you lived Asia or if you lived in the Middle East. 
One other question to ask you, and this might be a slightly controversial question, but these games, any big games, we talk about the Olympics running over budget and the FIFA World Cup 2022 cost a lot of money, $222 billion is what the final estimate is supposed to be. When you think about the legacy that they leave behind in terms of access, and bearing in mind that likely in order to host the games a large amount of public money was diverted from other projects and other things that might have also been desperately needed, do you think it was worth it? 

Ahmed Habib:
Well, I mean I think that that's a question that's not universal. I think it differs from country to country. Do I think it's worth it, for example, for Toronto, a city that's having a public funding crisis, that has a decaying public transportation system, where there's an epidemic of unhoused people in the city, et cetera... Do I think it's apt for public funds to be diverted into the games there? My initial response would be no. 
In addition to that, would I have wished that accessibility was worked on without the need to host games? Obviously, that's really basic, but I think this was a World Cup that was for the region. I'm not really privy to how much it cost. I do know, of course, there were a lot of questions that were raised about the workers' welfare, about the amount of money that was spent on the tournament, and I think those were all important questions that I think that this World Cup was able to bring these discussions to the floor. 
And I think at the end of the day disabled people now need to make sure that we continue to be advocates. We need to make sure that we continue to work on the legacy that was created, because ultimately at the end of the day all this legacy can go away if it's not turned into a sort of momentum that can increase accessibility throughout the Arab world. 

Joeita Gupta:
Earlier in our conversation you mentioned that you had along with a group of friends set up Qatar's first Accessibility Technology Center. Tell me a little bit more about that and some of the work that you're doing.

Ahmed Habib:
Yeah. In 2010 we set up a center called MADA, M-A-D-A, which means horizon in Arabic, and it's a technology centre where people with disabilities or disabled people can come, get assessed, get provided technology, and get trained on that technology. This includes braille note takers to adaptive mice. Our focus was primarily on ICT. 
In addition to that, we set up the regions for the accessibility national policy, which means that all major public sector websites have to be accessible in the world accessibility guidelines. We also worked tirelessly to develop Arabic language solutions that were not available before, and many of them were available only in the English language. The impact of the work that's been done over the last decade by a small center like MADA is really immeasurable, because we're seeing more and more types of centers like that pop up across the region, and I hope that it was a butterfly effect that we started.

Joeita Gupta:
That's really fantastic. And do you find that a lot of government websites and... I mean a lot of forms and all, now everything has to be done on the internet, everything is done online. How accessible are some of those digital resources in a place like Qatar? Because in Canada most things are pretty inaccessible, to be perfectly honest with you.

Ahmed Habib:
Yeah, I mean I think it varies again from organization to organization. I think maybe the public sector does a little bit of a better job at it than the private sector. I think what we know as people that work, or as experts in policymaking or anything related to improving the ability of everyone to access content spaces experiences, is that regulation and policies are at the heart of this, and I always use this example, which is in North America, in Toronto in particular. Most fast food chains will be really, really accessible, and in fact their accessibility will form a core pillar in their PR or in their marketing. But when those same restaurants open abroad in environments where they're not legally bound to be accessible, they don't seem to be accessible at all. 
So I think it's really important to recognize that accessibility is not a right, that it's not like an apple that fell off a tree. It's something that disabled people had to work hard for, that had to fight for. It's because people at times dedicated their entire lives to ensuring that disabled people had the ability to access workplaces and education and social and political spaces. 
So, yeah, when it comes to digital accessibility, unfortunately, a lot of it is falling wayward because the lack of buy-in at the policy level. And, yeah, it's definitely something that needs to be worked on. As you can imagine, digital content is at the heart of the way we attract each other today, digital content experiences, and not to make sure that these spaces are accessible is a fundamentally discriminatory thing against a large portion of the population.

Joeita Gupta:
My husband referred me to you. He said, "You should talk to my friend Ahmed. He's a fantastic poet," and I said, "Really?" I had no idea. So I was really excited to learn that you also write poetry. When and how did you get to writing poetry, and what do you normally write about?

Ahmed Habib:
In Toronto around the war on Iraq. As tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest the war, a big part of this resistance was cultural artists from all over the world came together to write music or create music or poetry or literature or dance or whatever art form that they were able to excel in to speak up against war and injustice and erase them wherever it may be, and that definitely is something that spoke to me, and I got involved in writing some poetry, and I was able to perform it. I was part of a young crew of spoken word artists that were tutored by a legendary poet in Toronto called SPIN, shout out to SPIN, and, yeah, that's where it all started.

Joeita Gupta:
Oh, amazing. Are you still writing poetry now?

Ahmed Habib:
My writing has evolved now to also include some prose that I most recently wrote, a very long text about the elusiveness of home and what home means as a refugee myself that had to leave Iraq. As someone who is in solidarity with the displaced ethnically cleansed and people living or being forced to live at the margins of society I really wanted to make sure that I can write about this experience of what home is and where home can be. And this conversation with you right now, even though I only have the honour of a few minutes to go, feels like home almost as well. So it's not something that is physical or sensory. It can be something much deeper, yet even at times very fleeting as well.

Joeita Gupta:
I would be in remiss in my duties as a host if I didn't ask you to read a short excerpt either from a poem of your choosing or if you wanted to read some of your prose, some of your recent work. The floor is yours. Please go right ahead.

Ahmed Habib:
One of the first poems that I wrote was called Who Knew. The poem is quite long, but I'll read the ending as opposed to the beginning, where I say, "Who knew that the sky can turn pink and the sun can sink into the earth where things of the greatest worth give birth to every verse that I dispersed and find myself beside it emerged? And who knew that the soul I left in Baghdad I would search for in [inaudible 00:25:34] bags and body bags, would be a gift to my people? Our souls were not so feeble that with every evil achiever there was born a believer who through words can conceive [inaudible 00:25:44] Iraq. And now that the birds are back, I think I saw a dove with the whole weight of the world on its back." Yeah, that was one of the poems that I wrote earlier.

Joeita Gupta:
That's amazing. Where can we find some of your work? I mean do you have a website obviously for MADA, but also just a website or a blog where we can keep track of some of your writings, because you are a phenomenal poet just based on that little excerpt there.

Ahmed Habib:
Oh, that's very kind of you Joeita. You can just follow me on Twitter, my first and last name. I share a lot of my writings there. And then if I do write something a bit more long-form I'll definitely put a link out there as well.

Joeita Gupta:
And what is your Twitter handle?

Ahmed Habib:
It's my first and last name, Ahmed Habib, A-H-M-E-D H-A-B-I-B.

Joeita Gupta:
Thank you very much. Ahmed will put that in the description down below, and I hope a lot of you will follow along. It was such a pleasure chatting with you today. Thank you so much for sharing your impressions.

Ahmed Habib:
Yeah. Likewise, Joeita. I thank you for hosting this show. I really appreciate the invitation, and more importantly, the opportunity to meet you.

Joeita Gupta:
Ahmed Habib is an accessibility expert, advocate, and a poet, and you can obviously follow him on Twitter at Ahmed Habib. We'll put the Twitter link down below so you can go ahead and follow Ahmed on there if you'd like to find out more about MADA and if you'd like to read some of his poetry and other writings as well. 
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Our videographer today has been Matthew McGirk, Mark Lapaula is technical producer for the show, Ryan Delahanty is coordinator for AMI-audio Podcasts. Andy Frank is the manager for AMI-audio, and I have been your host, Joeita Gupta. Thanks for listening.