The unpleasant truth has emerged: Qatar's national team fans are bought.

2026-06-26 18:26 © zumapress.com

Football fans shake their heads – where in the world championship do so many fans of the Qatar national team come from?

As reported by "The Telegraph", the fans of the wealthy Middle Eastern state's national team are simply bought.

The Qatari government paid for the flights of two thousand fans to the championship with luxury Qatar Airways, hotels near the stadiums, and tickets to the matches.

According to the press, it is now difficult to determine how much money the Qataris shelled out, but just the tickets to the World Cup group match against Bosnia cost them about 700 thousand U.S. dollars.

To attend the World Championship, one didn't even need to be a citizen of this state – they only needed to prove their ties to any Middle Eastern state.

A person didn’t even need to be interested in football – people hired by Qatar explain the football rules and how to support the national team before the matches.