Sitting in his spotlessly clean yet surprisingly sparse office on the 37th floor of the downtown Doha building that houses both the burgeoning numbers of recruited 2022 World Cup staff and the Qatar Football Federation, Al-Thawadi concedes the criticism has been painful.

Al-Thawadi remains bemused by the scale of the backlash Qatar 2020 has received

Qatar may have spent big to get their message across and made mistakes along the way. But never having been proved to break any FIFA rules, Al-Thawadi remains bemused by the scale of the backlash and the number of misconceptions.

"There is no doubt the hurt is always going to be there," he explained.

"I welcome constructive criticism because, guess what, nobody's perfect.

"South Africa in 2010 was a great success on so many levels yet wasn't perfect.

"But if it's not constructive criticism all you can do is look at the glass as half full.

"I am learning about the school of hard knocks but all I am interested now is the future."

FIFA general secretary Jérôme Valcke's infamous leaked email suggesting last year that Qatar bought the World Cup set the ball rolling in terms of raising obvious questions over the bidding process and hardly helped the tiny Gulf state's cause.

Valcke's untimely comments were construed in different ways, however, with many seasoned observers reasoning that what he actually meant was that Qatar's huge marketing spend gave it a natural advantage over other 2022 contenders.

"You can look at virtually anything and draw inferences," Al-Thawadi argues.

"It's like the parody where six blind men are walking round an elephant and are asked to describe it. The point is, we know what we are doing and nothing will stop us. We have to keep our eyes on the ball. The minute we don't, people will say we can't deliver."

Qatar were announced as the 2022 World Cup hosts in December 2010, becoming the first Arab, Middle Eastern or Muslim country to be awarded the right 

Despite the continuing picking away at Qatar's tactics, Al-Thawadi is determined to leave all the ill-feeling and negativity behind, however many times in the next few years the nation-building vision might take a hit.

Whether he likes it or not, however, the heat issue is unlikely to just disappear. Amid the growing clamour to switch the World Cup to the winter months, Al-Thawadi explains his personal thinking. "Look, it's very simple. We bid as a summer World Cup with cooling technology, [But] if the pillars of the football community come back to us and tell us winter or otherwise...then we will listen.

"But make no mistake, the cooling technology is a legacy concept. It opens up two thirds of the world to being able to enjoy their summers. Right now, the plan is still to hold the tournament in summer."

While the searing desert heat remains the main focus of the opposition camp, size comes a close second. The furthest distance between stadiums at 2022 is likely to be around 70 kilometres but Al-Thawadi doesn't see that as an issue either. The Olympics, he points out, stages 26 sports in one city. So, he argues, in the same way Qatar – half the size of Wales – will cope with millions of fans pouring into the country and snaking their way to the 12 stadiums, nine of which are being built from scratch starting in 2014.

He is not alone among key administrators in dismissing smallness as a problem. Sebastian Coe, the public face of London 2012, told the recent inaugural Doha Goals conference – aimed at using sport as a tool for positive change – that size did not necessarily matter and was certainly not an argument for knocking Qatar's success.

"It will be a mixture of the two," says Al-Thawadi. "It's a new concept, a bit like the Olympics but the feel will definitely be football. Fans will feel safe, they will feel secure, they will feel comfortable. They will also have a lot of fun. They will not only be physically cool; they will be cool in every sense."

Al Bidda Tower is home to the Qatar 2022 Organising Committee

Pinned to a wall on a lower floor of the same building, known as the Al Bidda Tower, is a detailed planner outlining what is headed "Programme Wide Masterplan: Stage One Draft".

Al-Thawadi quickly intervenes to point out that this complex chart of diagrams and arrows is not for public consumption – except to certain staff and consultants already recruited.

But if anyone had any misgivings about Qatar's ability to pull off what many believe is mission impossible, this operational blueprint – covering infrastructure, stadium construction, environment, transport and a host of other organisational features – provides an immediate insight into the work that is already being carried out to bring the World Cup to the Gulf a decade from now.

As does the soon-to-be-released strategy document which covers, over 44 pages, the next three years, setting out operational goals and objectives of Qatar's programme during the initial 2012-2015 period. It's a complicated read but a useful exercise in ascertaining how out of the box, if you like, Qatar is thinking.

Legal and security committees have already been set up to provide crucial advice and feedback, all designed to create positive a impact and enhance the fan experience both at the stadiums and in entire neighbourhoods.

It seems a tall order, particular given Doha's ghastly traffic congestion with cars gridlocked at peak times and pretty bad throughout the rest of the day. One taxi driver told me that the problem was that everyone owned a car - and insisted on driving their own rather than sharing.

The horrendous jams, insists Al-Thawadi, will change completely once an entire metro and road network is constructed, with the first signs of the progress likely to be sometime in 2014. The combination of billions of dollars and fierce determination can go a long way.

"There is a significant amount of work that needs doing," concedes Al-Thawadi. "Tenders are already out for the first tunnelling phase but I look at it like a 400-metre race. Can you go flat out early? No. Can you build up to it slowly? No.

"It's a fine balancing act and the next 10 years are exactly like that. We are putting into place a decision-making process, up and down the chain, that is quick and efficient."

But what, I asked him, was Qatar going to do about its human rights record regarding migrant workers which is constantly questioned in the media and seems to be at odds with the vision of multiculturalism?

Al-Thawadi ensures that all construction contracts will have requirements that meet international standards

"This gets raised all the time and for me it's kind of strange because we have always said we are making a commitment towards the human and social elements which are very important," he responds. "In all constructions contracts there will be requirements that meet international standards."

Indeed, Al-Thawadi is fiercely proud of the legacy element that Qatar has promised. Last week's Doha Goals conference, pulling  together many of sports' leading decision makers and stakeholders, was a classic example of the passion being demonstrated to use sport as a tool for positive change, not just in Qatar but the entire region.

Much has been made already of the jaw-dropping Aspire Dome, the state-of-the-art multi-sport venue that is used both a training and coaching headquarters for aspiring young Qatari hopefuls and hand-picked African athletes being integrated into Qatari life, and as a conference centre to spread the message of positioning the oil-rich state as a true sporting hub.

Al-Thawadi insists Qatar's relentless quest to be taken seriously would have happened regardless of whether or not they won the right to stage the World Cup. Many punters had never heard of Qatar as a sporting destination prior to the bid but Al-Thawadi counters: "The World Cup might have been a catalyst but don't forget we have also bid for the Olympics and we've already hosted a string of major international sports events. Aspire got built years before the World Cup came on board. To dispel the myth very clearly, sport is within our DNA."

And football in particular. Al-Thawadi refutes the suggestion that Qatar doesn't deserve the World Cup because it has no footballing pedigree and has never qualified for the finals. "Football wasn't born here overnight just because of 2022. I don't buy the pedigree argument. Asia now has a strong standing in world football and it's not easy qualifying.

"Don't forget that in terms of club football Al-Sadd came from nowhere to win the AFC Champions League last year. That shows the pedigree is being built. Look how long it took Africa. We have only been in place since 1971 as a country."

Qatar's leading club Al-Sadd won the AFC Champions League last year

Which is why the aspect of nation building is playing such a key role in 2022 planning, just as it did in South Africa in 2010. "We are perhaps on a scale no-one has seen before because the concept is not limited to the borders of Qatar and is about the entire Middle East," said Al-Thawadi. "We want the power of sport to break down stereotypical barriers."

But while the ideology might be for a Middle Eastern World Cup, Qatar has no intention of sharing the tournament with its neighbours. UEFA President Michel Platini, who has pushed through his plan for a pan-Continental European Championship in 2020, suggested recently that multiple hosting might also work for Qatar, the idea being to allow other Gulf states who could never stage the World Cup on their own to have a piece of the action.

But Al-Thawadi says this is not part of the grand plan and dismisses it outright. "It's not something that was part of our bid. For me it's a Qatari World Cup."

Which makes him even more determined to succeed, regardless of the tunnel vision he believes some of his critics may have. "When I look back - sleepless nights working on our final presentation and coming up with innovative concepts in our technical bid - I'm very proud of what we've done. After all, we were new to this whole industry; we didn't know anybody.

"When we won the bid on December 2, 2010, some of my closest non-Qatari friends rang me up in tears. Combining all the different cultures outweighs all the knocks we have taken. I have a pretty positive feeling that in time people will understand what we are trying to do too."

"We have a great concept and a great dream but the measure for me in terms of whether we are on the right path has always been commitment of the people and the operational staff who buy into the vision: people willing to work through thick and thin. That commitment is incredibly uplifting."

Andrew Warshaw is a former sports editor of The European, the newspaper that broke the Bosman story in the 1990s, the most significant issue to shape professional football as we know it today. Before that, he worked for the Associated Press for 13 years in Geneva and London. He is now the chief football reporter for insidethegames and insideworldfootball. Follow him on Twitter.

One man who had his own personal moment to treasure from the London 2012 Games was Greg Searle, a BT Ambassador, who won the second Olympic rowing medal of his career at the age of 40, in the men's eight, two decades after winning gold in the coxed pairs along with his brother Jonny in the 1992 Barcelona Games.

But that was not the highlight for Searle.

"When I was 20, definitely the Moment would have been me winning the gold in Barcelona," he told insidethegames.

"But my Moment from London 2012 was not the winning of an Olympic bronze. It came at the Closing Ceremony when I heard Seb Coe saying that when the time came, we did it right – and I saw a banner in the crowd which said: 'Thank you London – Well Organised.'

"That was the moment when I just went 'Wow'.  It felt great to have played a part in something which affected not just me and my family and friends, but so many other people – the volunteers, the people in the stands, the people watching all over the world on TV.

"But as the BT poll shows, there were lots and lots of moments which registered during the 2012 Games. Everybody had their own different experiences from it."

Searle was one of the oldest members of the gold medal winning Great British men's eight rowing team

That said, Searle treasures the achievement of winning his second Olympic medal, even if it was not the colour he and his colleagues - who staked all on a monumental effort but ultimately unsuccessful effort to get away from the German world champions and then let Canada past them in their exhaustion -  had so desperately desired.

"I don't even like letting the words out of my mouth, but we were the second best crew behind the Germans, who had beaten us in the previous year's World Championships," Searle said.

"We gave everything on that one day to see if we could beat them, and in the end we were grateful we managed to hang on to get a medal.

"I didn't like the fact that we were half a length down on the Germans, but I was very glad we were inches ahead of the United States and the Netherlands. I knew from the 2000 Olympics, when I came fourth in the pairs with Ed Coode, the difference between getting a medal and just missing out.

Richard Egington, Mohamed Sbihi and Greg Searle of Great Britain

"It was lovely to be at the Molesey Boat Club dinner recently and to hear my Olympic team-mate Mo Sbihi talking about his experience of winning Olympic bronze in the eight. He said that when he was given the medal he would almost love to have dropped it in the lake.

"But now it is his dearest possession. Now he realises that the chance to win an Olympic medal is not something which comes up often."

Nor indeed does the chance to win the BBC SPOTY award. And this year, even a bronze medal placing will be a matter for extreme pride.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian.

Greenwich was the centre of worldwide attention when it successfully hosted the equestrian during London 2012

But this seems an impressively-assembled gift-horse and it would be churlish to look it too closely in the mouth.

Some examples:

I was impressed by the multi-faceted approach adopted in the bid to transform Hornfair Park, a run-down space in a deprived part of the Borough.

As outlined in the report, it has been redeveloped into a so-called "sports hub", including a BMX track using soil donated from the Olympic Park site.

This track was used in May for the inaugural London Youth Games BMX event.

Funding from the London Marathon Trust enabled new changing facilities to be built adjacent to sports pitches, while tennis courts were redeveloped with the help of the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA).

A 1930s lido has also received much-needed investment.

Sportathlon - a mass participation event for primary-school kids that was established as long ago as 2006 - looks to be another worthwhile idea that has become part of the local fabric.

I was also impressed by the way Greenwich seems to have planned well in advance to exploit its weeks in the global spotlight to provide a long-term boost to tourism, making the most of its nautical heritage via initiatives involving tall ships and the cruise ship industry, as well as by endeavouring to promote the Borough as "a destination in its own right".

When the 2012 BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year is announced at ExCeL in London this weekend, there are unlikely to be any major surprises.

Yet, to anyone taking even a passing glance the figures are barely credible. It would appear that having been unable to generate the increase in sporting participation promised by our politicians when winning the London 2012 Games bid, the solution has been to simply massage the data to match the promise.

Officially 750,000 more people over the age of 16 are taking part in sport at least once a week compared to 12 months ago. Surely this is good news? Well, yes, it would be if it were believable.

The headline figure offered by Sport England's expensive Active People survey is 15.5 million over 16s regularly - once per week - taking part in sport.

Put that figure another way and it tells us that Sport England want us to believe that one in three over 16s in England regularly participate in sport. Seriously? Take a look around you - friends, work colleagues, family, neighbours - one in every three are playing sport regularly, that is what we are being asked to believe.

I can only speak for myself and, for me, that claim beggars belief. That the media accept it unquestioningly astonishes me. That the politicians who fund this expensive survey believe it continues to offer value for money - if it ever did -astounds me.

One in three. Take another look around you. Not one in three under 30s or under 40s, but 33 per cent of all over 16s in England.

One in three people in England now play sport, according to figures released last week

It appears the solution for successive Governments poor sports development strategy has been introduced. Just make the figures up to fit the promise. And why not, it appears no one cares enough to check anyway.

We still lack a properly integrated national strategy for the development of sport. Young people are still missing out on learning physical literacy at the key age/stage of development and we are still missing any target by which success (or failure) of government policy can be judged.

But, take a look around you, one in three of your neighbours are playing sport regularly (ahem) so everything in the garden must be rosy.

Jim Cowan is a former athlete, coach, event organiser and sports development specialist who is the founder of Cowan Global, a company specialising in consultancy, events and education and training. For more details click here.

It has now been a few months since London 2012 ended and in many circles; that is a lifetime ago.

The interest of the British media in the next Games – the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and Paralympics – will be minimal.

Interest will obviously grow again when Rio 2016 comes around but for the intermittent period; the goings-on at Coe's beloved Chelsea Football Club will have to fill the sports sections of most daily newspapers.

It is sad but perhaps not that surprising to think how fast London 2012 has already begun to fade into a distant, pleasant memory and speaking in SoHo Hotel to the wonderful London 2012 media team for potentially the last time was an enjoyable yet slightly depressing experience given that it symbolised the end of a long and wonderful journey.


Clearly London 2012 ended several months ago but with the year now drawing to a close, it feels like the metaphorical curtain is only now closing on the Olympics and Paralympics and arguably the greatest ever year for the old capital city.

The Olympic and Paralympic circus has now packed up and left town but what remains is the warm satisfaction of having been a small part of the greatest Games in history.

And that was something rather bittersweet for all of us in SoHo Hotel.

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames

But tomorrow they are apparently getting ready to ignore their sacred Charter so that they can punish Armstrong and strip him of the Olympic bronze medal he won at Sydney 12 years ago, even though it says in the Charter the statute of limitations is restricted to eight. 

In the great robbery that was Armstrong's career, getting away with a bronze medal barely mentions a footnote on the charge sheet when set against stealing seven Tour de France titles. But, like everyone else, so upset are the IOC that they were taken for a ride - literally - by the American that they seem prepared to try to find a way to circumnavigate their own rules to take it away from him.

Lance Armstrong faces losing the Olympic bronze medal he won in the time trial at Sydney in 2000

John Coates, the Australian lawyer who is a member of the IOC Executive Board, claims that the statute "simply doesn't apply if you have broken the law". That seems a fair enough argument but, while Armstrong may have been tried and found guilty in the court of public opinion, he hasn't actually been convicted of anything criminal (although he may still face perjury charges at some point in the distant future). 

Thomas Bach, meanwhile, another lawyer, who is in pole position to replace Jacques Rogge as President of the IOC, claims that they must strip Armstrong of the medal because they have a "zero-tolerance policy on doping".

Well, if that's the case, and they are going to be consistent, then the IOC had better book a meeting room in the Palace Hotel in Lausanne on a long-term basis, get their most recent copy of The Complete Book of the Olympics by David Wallechinsky off the shelf, take the tops off their red pens and start revising because this could take some time...

Where shall we start?

I know, how about the time trial from the Sydney Olympics in 2000? Yes, the very same race that Armstrong finished third in and which the IOC are so keen to revise the result for. Because there, in second place, just one spot ahead of Lance was Jan Ullrich, his old German rival, who claimed the silver medal to add to the gold he had won earlier in the Games in the road race.

Like Armstrong, right to the time he got off his bike and hung up his helmet, he denied doping, although there was plenty of circumstantial evidence for which you hardly needed to be Hercule Poirot to have your suspicions aroused even before he was found guilty of a historic doping offence earlier this year, despite having retired in 2007.

That was even before Ullrich's old boss at Telekom, Rudy Pevenage, admitted in the wake of the Armstrong scandal that they had doped. The IOC has already investigated Ullrich once but decided that there was nothing they could do because the statute of limitations had expired (even though they are prepared to overlook that in the case of Armstrong). 

Germany's Jan Ullrich (left) has been allowed to keep the medals he won at Sydney 2000, including the gold in the road race

Okay, there is a grey area here because Pevenage has claimed that Ullrich was "clean" between 1998 - when the Festina scandal erupted - and 2001 when they realised their US rival "had become superhuman...and we tried to find the recipe, the same recipe as Armstrong". But is there anyone out there who truly believes that Ullrich is more deserving of being allowed to keep his medals from Sydney than Armstrong? I think not.

How about another case, that of the British runner Mike McLeod. He crossed the line third in the 10,000 metres at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles but was promoted after Finnish rival Matti Vainio, who finished second, was disqualified for failing a drugs test for anabolic steroids, the first track and field medal winner to be disqualified at an Olympic Games.

Then, several years later, the Italian gold medallist Alberto Cova, confessed to blood doping, a process where blood is taken from the athlete, stored while the body replenishes itself, then given back prior to competition. The procedure was sanctioned by the Italian athletics federation at the time but was not technically illegal because of a loophole in the rules, so another grey area the IOC will argue.

But, let's call a spade a spade here, it was cheating and if the IOC are to embrace this new policy of "zero tolerance" however much time has elapsed, then surely there is a 60-year-old grandfather in Newcastle who deserves to be given the gold medal he was cheated out nearly 30 years ago?

Okay, I can see that this isn't as easy as it looks. So how about a case where there is no doubt, where the athlete themselves have admitted that they were doped when they won their gold medal and have even asked the authorities to strip them of their performances? We can't get any more clear-cut than that, can we? They have even looked their beaten opponent in the eye and admitted that they cheated.

Step forward Petra Schneider, the East German swimmer who won the 400m medley at Moscow in 1980. She has subsequently acknowledged that she was fuelled throughout her career by anabolic steroids prescribed to her by the East German authorities. So honest was she that when she met Sharron Davies, the Briton she beat in the Soviet capital, for a television programme she admitted it on camera.

East Germany's Petra Schneider has admitted that she used anabolic steroids throughout her career, including when she won the 400m medley at Moscow in 1980

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, hundreds of thousands of pages of documentary evidence was uncovered of a state-administered drugs programme involving leading athletes, like Schneider, who could be identified by codes or in some cases letters kept in Stasi files. They are the "War and Peace" of doping history and make the 1,000 page document prepared by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) on the Armstrong case look like an Enid Blyton paperback.

Besides Schneider, those named in public include track and field Olympic champions Marita Koch, Barbel Wockel, Heike Drechsler, Jürgen Schult and Thomas Munkelt.Yet, look at the results from when GDR made their Olympic debut at Mexico City in 1968 until Seoul 1988, which marked their final appearance, their names are all still there, including Schneider.

The United States Olympic Committee asked for the redistribution of gold medals won at Montreal in 1976 after Andrea Pollack, a swimmer who won two gold medals there, admitted she had been doped at the time. But, despite court rulings in Germany that substantiate claims of systematic doping, the IOC Executive Board has always resisted revising the results.

In turning down the American petition on behalf of its women's medley relay team in Montreal and a similar petition from the British Olympic Association on behalf of Davies, the IOC has always made it clear that it wanted to discourage any such appeals in the future.

Even if Armstrong is stripped of his medal tomorrow the IOC apparently plan to leave the third place position vacant rather than redistributing it to the fourth-placed Abraham Olano Manzano from Spain. That is following the lead of the International Cycling Union (UCI), who have declined to reallocate any of Arrmsong's seven Tour de France victories between 1999 and 2005, perhaps mindful that in three of those years Ullrich had finished second to him.

There is a precedent for an Olympic "ghost" race, of course. Three years ago, at the corresponding IOC Executive Board meeting, they took away the five medals, four of them gold, American Marion Jones had won at Sydney, the end of a long running saga that had started when she was still covered by the IOC's statute of limitations following her admission that she had been using drugs at the time.

The result of the women's 100m at Sydney 2000 was left blank after the original winner Marion Jones was disqualified

The medals they took away included the gold in the 100m, which they declined to re-award to the runner-up Ekaterina Thanou, the Greek who herself has been banned for being linked to drugs. That decision by the IOC was perhaps perfectly understandable given the circumstances.

But, if they decide to take action against Armstrong tomorrow even though it would clearly be illegal under the rules of the Olympic Charter and strip him of his medal (good luck getting him to package it up and post it back to Lausanne, by the way), they could stand accused of victimisation. I, though prefer to think that Armstrong is more suffering from his cause célèbre (although I have no sympathy for him). 

It is unlikely that the IOC would have been as tough on, say for example, an Eastern European weightlifter from Sydney who had been exposed as a drugs cheat a dozen years later because such a case would have warranted just a few lines in the media. Then they would have hid behind the Olympic Charter and the "statute of limitations". 

Armstrong doesn't deserve to keep his bronze medal but nor do the likes of Davies deserve the injustice of seeing the IOC ignore the statute of limitations that were used to deny them the justice they craved just because they need to be seen to be tough now.

Duncan Mackay is the award winning editor of insidethegames. A former UK Sports Journalist of the Year and UK Sports Internet Writer of the Year, he previously worked for The Guardian and The Observer.