Qatari Soccer Empire Buys a Foothold in Europe
A two-part series examining Qatar’s pursuit to become a global soccer power.

By SAM BORDEN, STEVE EDER, JACK WILLIAMS and CHRISTOPHER HARRESSJULY 15, 2014

For the Qataris, the attraction was more complex. They were searching for a way station of sorts, a side door into the elite European soccer system. Through a program called Aspire Football Dreams, begun in 2007, the Qataris had scouted hundreds of thousands of young African players and brought the best of them to their academies, in Doha and in Senegal, to develop. Now they wanted a place where the youths could play professionally.

The plan seemed straightforward enough: Take the best of the African prospects and bring them to a team in Europe to begin their professional careers. After the boys live in Europe, under Aspire’s supervision, for the required number of years, have them apply for European passports, allowing them freer movement in club-to-club transfers since there are often restrictions on the number of non-European players allowed at any one club.

Then, when the boys have developed to the point that they are coveted by more famous clubs like Bayern Munich or Barcelona, cash the checks on their transfer fees and, most important for the Qataris, hold them up as shining examples of a meteoric rise in Qatari soccer acumen. The world would know that these boys came from Aspire.

“We want our players to become the best in the world,” said Andreas Bleicher, the executive in charge of Aspire’s Football Dreams project and its international endeavors. “To do that, we needed a club of our own.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/sports/worldcup/a-qatari-soccer-program-looking-to-rise-buys-a-foothold-in-europe.html?ref=soccer&_r=0