“Qatar indulges in a life-size game of Monopoly” in the United Kingdom, notes The Observer. A stone’s throw from the start of the FIFA World Cup on November 20, the left-wing weekly decided to gauge the extent of the influence of this small Gulf state, from London to Glasgow, from Wales to the suburbs of Manchester. And to group the results in an infographic rich in lessons.
First observation: under the impetus of Hamad ben Jassim ben Jaber Al-Thani (nicknamed HBJ), head of government from 2007 to 2013, the former British protectorate (1916-1971) “clearly sought, through hydrocarbon money, to acquire huge chunks of the country that once ruled it”. Main example, the takeover of the emblematic Harrods department store, in 2010, the year of the attribution of the Mondial 2022. Two years later, the mayor of London Boris Johnson and HBJ inaugurated in grand style