Danyel Reiche is a visiting associate professor at Georgetown University Qatar, where he leads a research initiative on the FIFA World Cup 2022. He is a tenured associate professor of Comparative Politics at the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon. His past research has focused on two areas: energy and sport policy, and politics, with the latter being his current priority. He published Success and Failure of Countries at the Olympic Games in 2016, Qatar and the 2022 FIFA World Cup: Politics, Controversy, Change with Paul Brannagan in 2022, and edited with Tamir Sorek a volume entitled Sport, Politics and Society in the Middle East (2019). His peer-reviewed articles have been published in both area study journals (such as International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics and Journal of Energy Policy) and broader-oriented journals, such as Third World Quarterly or The Middle East Journal. Reiche has also been invited to write op-eds for leading international newspapers such as Washington Post and Spiegel Online and has been frequently interviewed and quoted by major media outlets such as Le Monde, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Paul Michael Brannagan is a political sociologist specialising in the study of sport. His research primarily focuses on the role and use of sports mega-events by national governments for achieving specific political, economic, social and cultural objectives. To date, his research has centred most specifically on sport in the Middle East, focusing on the State of Qatar and its forthcoming staging of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. He is the author of Qatar and the 2022 FIFA World Cup: Politics, Controversy, Change (co-authored with Danyel Reiche, 2022). His work has been published in leading political science and sports studies journals, including Leisure Studies , Global Society , Diplomacy and Statecraft and International Affairs. He has frequently been interviewed and quoted by major media outlets, such as the BBC World Service, The Independent and the New York Times.