Hi, I’m Andy Richardson, Al Jazeera’s sports presenter, and I’m here with Usher Komugisha, an internationally renowned sportswriter from Africa, to cover the World Cup Draw Day. Al Jazeera is kicking off an exciting run of World Cup coverage here in Doha, where the 2022 World Cup is to be played in November. We’re going to do our best to answer your questions about soccer and life in Doha both here on Reddit and streaming on Al Jazeera (watch along at this link. Ask me, or us, anything.

PROOF: https://i.redd.it/sjzxunpjylq81.png

Comments: 365 • Responses: 12  • Date: 

historycat95685 karma

Are you allowed to discuss the human rights violations which were used to build the venues?

Aljazeera-English262 karma

Hi u/historycat95 yes, we cover this story on air. Al Jazeera doesn't limit what we're can and can't report on

LiamGTR402 karma

[deleted]

Aljazeera-English-95 karma

Hi u/LiamGTR thanks very much for joining this AMA. Appreciate your question. All I can say that Al Jazeera hasn’t shied away from covering these important issues. https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2022/3/31/qatars-human-rights-record-takes-centre-stage-at-fifa-congress

[deleted]-17 karma

Are fans going to be able to drink alcohol since it's outlawed there?

Aljazeera-English-46 karma

Yes they are. Alcohol is not banned here. It's available in bars in restaurants. If you're a resident here you can buy it and take it home as well. There will be fun zones here with alcohol available when we had the 2019 Club World Cup Whether or not they'll be alcohol in stadiums that is still a bit of a moot point. If I look back at the last couple of World Cups, Russia and Brazil, interesting in both those countries normally, alcohol is banned in stadiums, but during the World Cup it was allowed because a beer company happens to want to FIFA as main sponsors so I imagine there's a decent chance that there'll be some alcohol possibly available in stadiums, but that is still to be decided.

AlfajorConFernet-32 karma

What team are you rooting for? How do you feel about the group it got placed in?

Aljazeera-English-9 karma

Hi u/alaforconfernet Usher here. France. They are the reigning World Cup champions and yes, I know what happened to the last reigning World Cup champions at the 2018 edition in Russia but I'm still just looking at them through the qualifiers you get the feeling that I still a young team, most of those that played you know, in 2018 and also looking at the performance in in the Euros but England and not looking back as well. Finally, maybe this is it, you know, for them as a team, but also looking at the rest of the teams Argentina, Argentina have a chance to win this World Cup.

Hiding_behind_you-38 karma

Which is best, Strawberry jam or Raspberry jam?

Edit: seems people prefer to put salt on their toast.

Aljazeera-English-10 karma

Going to go with Raspberry

Traditional-War-7360-40 karma

Who has the easiest group!? Surely A? or B?

Aljazeera-English-3 karma

I suppose any group that's got Qatar in it as a top seed is going to be seen as relatively open for the other, the other countries and I think Senegal will be pretty happy with that group. They are actually very happy. I've just been looking at social media, you know, posts and everyone is saying okay, that's a fair group for the African champions, and obviously have a little style different style in that group. We have a team from Europe, obviously Netherlands Senegal from Africa, Ecuador and then Qatar, you know, from from Asia. So I think it's a little bit tight, but it's I think, in my opinion, the easiest one also mentioned F A group B which is England around the United States and the euro player for a minder that that is between Ukraine, Scotland and Wales could be a bit of a bit of a local Darby for England there but does that group look look easy for I guess England will fancy their chances to go quite deep into the tournament? I mean, England, they're literally the outright favourites in this group. Honestly, they should come out top of that, but it's quite interesting that should they go to the round of 16 as the mother and mother come out as the best in Group D. They could actually meet in the quarterfinals.

shug322-42 karma

Hey Andy, thanks for doing an AMA! Who do you think will do the best out of Canada and USA?

Aljazeera-English-13 karma

I think it's really important for Canada. They're hosting the World Cup in 2026. They had one terrible appearance at the World Cup back in 1986, when they famously had a fantastic kit, one of the great kits of the World Cup but lost every single game so good that they are playing well at the moment

Traditional-War-7360-46 karma

[deleted]

Aljazeera-English-12 karma

expanding the tournament's 48 teams in 2026. That's obviously going to benefit a lot of continents including Africa. Yes, Africa will definitely have about 9.5 slots, the other bingo player against another continental team, but just looking at it, it's going to be a bit too much. You know, when you think about the number of you know, it's like it was down the quality of the tournament, because now it's really a prestigious tournament. When you have 48 teams looks like too much but also whoever wins the 40 at MOCA will definitely feel like they've really achieved something huge because by the time.

You have to think about it that the African Cup of Nations which is every two years is going to be affected. Of course the African nations championship the chan, which is meant for the locally best players in in the league that the country coming from the countries where they play, it will be dead, because where are you going to get time to play the qualifiers and, you know, all these other regional tournaments that are taking place. Huge opposition as well from South America from from Europe and International Olympic Committee as well.

Aljazeera-English-46 karma

Hi everyone and thanks for joining. We're going to start answering questions from our studio set very soon.