At Play the Game 2025, Ibhais revealed that Qatar’s Supreme Committee secretly profiled journalists worldwide, tracking their social media, labeling them as friendly or problematic, and sharing those profiles with government agencies to control international coverage of the 2022 World Cup.

He said Qatar’s media strategy revolved around three words: deflect, discredit, and deny. Journalists who cooperated were rewarded with access and exclusives. Those who criticized Qatar were cut off. When that failed, the regime bypassed the press entirely and delivered its message directly to diplomats, parliaments, and football federations.

Ibhais knows this system from the inside. As the committee’s media manager, he was jailed in 2019 after refusing to cover up Qatar’s abuse of migrant workers and criticizing the regime’s handling of a labor protest. He spent years in prison on fabricated charges before being released earlier this year.

The World Cup, he said, was never just about sports. It was a $300 billion campaign to rewrite Qatar’s image while silencing dissent.

Why are “journalists” like Tucker Carlson so intent on defending this terror-funding Islamic dictatorship located thousands of miles away from the United States?

And if this is how Qatar operated during the World Cup, imagine what they’re doing now.

Photo - Video - Use according to Section 27 A of the law