File photo used for representation only
Qatar hosting the World Association for Sport Management (WASM) 2023 Conference will be an opportunity to review the 2022 World Cup and strengthen Qatar’s place as a global sports hub, Dr. Kamilla Swart-Arries has said.
WASM 2023, slated for March this year, was postponed due to the unpredictability of the Omicron variant. The Conference will now be held from March 5 to 8, 2023, in its fourth edition and the first in the Middle East. It will be co-hosted by Qatar University (QU) and Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) under the theme “Bringing the World Together: Global and Local Perspectives on Sport Management.”
Speaking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of a joint panel session to promote the Conference, Dr. Swart-Arries, Associate Professor at College of Science and Engineering and HBKU Co-Chair of the 4th WASM Conference, said the meeting is vital to building local capacity.
Qatar has already hosted major world sports events, including the Asian Games, Asian Football Confederation Cup, World Men’s Handball Championship, IAAF World Athletics Championships, and FIFA Arab Cup, among others, which have significantly boosted the sports infrastructure and value. These events already place Qatar as a sports juggernaut ahead of the biggest football event – the FIFA World Cup, which the country will host from November 20 to December 18, 2022. According to a PwC report, respondents expect the Middle East to grow by 8.7 percent over the next five years, faster than the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, Qatar aims to develop a $20bn sporting industry by attracting international companies and investors.
“The postponement allows us to have it post-World Cup to reflect and move forward in terms of building the sports industry in Qatar and in the region. Qatar is positioning itself as a hub for global sporting events. With that, it’s essential that we collaborate and bring stakeholders together, and academia is a significant part of that. So, it is important in terms of building knowledge, transferring of knowledge, and building local capacity to support the kinds of events and generally the growth of sports in Qatar and the region,” Dr. Swart-Arries said.
“The Conference is significant because it brings delegates from all over the world to share and exchange knowledge and build collaboration. So at the same time, we’re learning from different parts of the world, and we get an opportunity also to share knowledge of Qatar. I think that’s very important globally for building the industry,” she added.
WASM was launched in April of 2012 and serves as the premiere trade organisation for the field of sport management. WASM’s mission is “to facilitate sport management research and teaching and learning excellence worldwide”. It represents all the continental sport management associations worldwide. The previous three editions were held in Madrid, Lithuania and Chile.
