The political stance of Ibero-American national teams on social media towards Qatar during the 2022 FIFA World Cup

Abstract

This article investigates the role of national teams on social media and how they shape international perceptions of Qatar during the 2022 FIFA World Cup. This tournament was an essential element of Qatar's sports diplomacy that faced criticism because of corruption allegations, organisational skills, labour conditions and human rights issues, including the treatment of the LGBTQIA+ community. This study is based on a conceptual content analysis of the Twitter (now called X) and Instagram accounts of the footballers and coaches of the eight Ibero-American national teams participating in the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The aim is to identify how they communicated about the State of Qatar in their social media posts. Accordingly, this article studies the posting frequency, how they address Qatar's image, and their engagement with the aforementioned criticism of the host country. The findings show that from 2173 posts collected, a total of 275 posts mentioned Qatar. Neutral messages were dominant with 268 posts, while there were only seven positive posts. In conclusion, the Ibero-American players and coaches have contributed to the normalisation of the event through sharing content and images of Qatar in a neutral, informative tone.