The event was attended by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who made a speech alongside the FIFA president Gianni Infantino. The official mascot and the first single from the official soundtrack were also unveiled on the occasion.
Host nation Qatar were drawn in Group A with Ecuador, Senegal and the Netherlands. The Maroons will open their campaign at Al Bayt Stadium on November 21 against Ecuador.
The draw ceremony was presented by award-winning actor Idris Elba and broadcaster Reshmin Chowdhury. The draw assistants were FIFA World Cup champions Cafu and Lothar Matthaus, alongside football legends Adel Ahmed MalAllah, Ali Daei, Bora Milutinovic, Jay-Jay Okocha, Rabah Madjer and Tim Cahill. They were supported by a conducting team comprised of FIFA Women’s World Cup champion Carli Lloyd, football pundit and former England player Jermaine Jenas, and British-Jamaican sports presenter Samantha Johnson.
The official mascot, La’eeb, visited the ceremony from the mascot-verse. The mascot segment of the show was directed by Ahmed al-Baker, CEO, Katara Studios, and written by Mohamed al-Ibrahim and Fahad al-Kuwari, both senior content producers at Katara Studios.
The stunning animated film presented a fictional narrative of football’s origins; one that indicates football is a form of knowledge handed down to humans from the mascot-verse – a parallel reality to ours where all mascots come from, allowing the audience to know more about a plane of reality that humans created with their thoughts and dreams.
Soon after, the first single from the Qatar 2022 official soundtrack was performed. Called ‘Hayya Hayya (Better Together)’, the song features Qatari artist Aisha, Davido and rising star Trinidad Cardona.
The show then included a distinctly Qatari performance titled ‘The Voyage of Fijiri’. This was an audio-visual live performance of the traditional art of Fijiri and took the audience on a journey to explore the origins of the art, infused with a modern, electronic musical twist. The segment featured visual graphics of iconic buildings around the world. The performance was composed by Faisal al- Tamimi, a composer and specialist in traditional Qatari music, and Greg M. Johnson, and performed by Ali al-Haddad, a specialist in ‘Nahham’ art who recently won the Katara Nahham art competition, and the band Lejbilat.
This was followed with an appearance by Sherihan, one of the Arab world’s most well-known actresses and performers who delivered an impromptu, poignant and motivational speech that paid tribute to the humanistic values of sportsmanship that football inspires.
Another local element to note is the fact the dresses worn by the female presenters were designed by Qatari designer Wadha al-Hajri, who launched the label ‘Wadha’ in 2010.