Twelve of the 20 players who represented Qatar in the 2015 Under-20 World Cup play for the same three clubs. And — guess what? — they are all based in Europe.
Unusual coincidence? Hardly. This past summer the Aspire Academy — the colossal training centre and centrepiece of the nation’s attempt to transform itself into a sporting power — acquired control of Cultural Leonesa, in the Spanish second tier, and LASK Linz, in Austria, to go with the club they have owned since 2012, Eupen, in the Belgian second division.
This has accelerated the process of stocking the clubs with young Qatari players, as well as youngsters from Aspire’s overseas academies in Senegal and Thailand. Aspire’s website claims that each year more than 650,000 kids from Asia, Africa and Latin America are screened by their scouts, with the best ones being offered scholarships.
You could say that Aspire has been a giant nature v nurture experiment since its inception in 2004. The idea was to create the ultimate centre of excellence, with the best coaches, and see whether Qatar could develop its own world-class athletes.
No doubt the level of Qatari sport, including football, has improved tremendously. Yet with a population of just 300,000, even those at the nurture end of the spectrum would have to admit that there is not much raw material with which to work.
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As a result, 11 years after Aspire’s grand opening, you have a situation where the country still finds itself naturalising talent to compete. Eleven of the 23-man Qatari squad in the most recent Asian Cup consisted of players born abroad. (It gets worse in other sports. Qatar finished second in the World Handball Championships in February with a side whose starters were almost exclusively foreign-born and had previously represented other nations. So the focus has changed. The Qataris realised that, while Aspire could do a fine enough job in developing kids through to the age of 18, they would hit a bottleneck. Playing time in the Qatari league is tough to come by and, in any case, the standard is not great, so it is not the best place to develop. Moving abroad was difficult. The kind of clubs that would offer a Qatari Under-20 international a contract are not the type a wealthy young footballer would want to join.
So if you cannot get a European club to sign your players, the logical thing to do is buy a club in Europe and send your guys there. Problem solved.
A few Qataris joined Eupen a year ago, without making much of a mark. So now they have added Leonesa — picked up on the cheap by taking over the debt of about £1.2 million — and Linz to their portfolio.
Controlling multiple clubs across European leagues is nothing new, of course. The owners of Watford and Charlton Athletic, among others, also own teams in different leagues. Chelsea may not officially own Vitesse Arnhem, but the Dutch club happily take their players in droves.
But there is a key difference here. The cross-ownership model is designed to help to develop players who are then sold for a profit. The Pozzo family, who own Watford, do not care if their right back is English or Icelandic, as long as he becomes a better player and either contributes to the team or is sold at a profit.
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With the Qatari situation, it is different. Nationality matters. The kids they sent to Austria, Spain and Belgium are not being developed so they can be sold or because they want Eupen or Leonesa to win the Champions League. They are being prepared for the Qatar national team.
And there is no real point in them being in Europe without playing time. At some point, the risk of them being picked based on nationality and the need to develop them, rather than merit, will be very real.
Reaction to the Qatari investment has generally been positive. The promise of financial security helped to open a lot of doors. Then again, the process has only just begun. Fans will accept on-loan players — essentially, that is what they are — regardless of origin if they improve the team.
And, generally, if they do not improve the team, they do not play. But no one wants to see their club stocked with guys who are only there because someone is paying for them to be there. Especially not if they end up keeping better players out.