Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al-Baker with Barcelona stars Neymar, Gerard Pique and Barcelona FC Vice President Javier Haus posing in front of a still from the new TV Commercial at a press conference in Doha yesterday.


By Joe Koraith /Doha


Barcelona stars Neymar and Gerard Pique are confident Qatar will prove “great hosts” of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
“It is a great pleasure for me to be here. Qatar is always looking to develop sport. So it will be a great pleasure to participate in the World Cup as part of the Brazilian team,” said Neymar, who was in Doha yesterday for the launch of the new Qatar Airways television commercial, in which he and other Barca stars have been featured.
Barcelona defender Pique added: “I have only good words about Qatar. They have recently successfully hosted the handball world championship. I see that they have all the resources, stadiums and the will to do it. The most important thing is that the focus remains on the player. To make them comfortable to make it a successful event and I have no doubt that Qatar will go all out to do that.”
Starring Barcelona stars Lionel Messi, Neymar, Pique, Andres Iniesta and Luis Suarez, the new Qatar Airways commercial has the players visiting a number of destinations within the airline’s extensive network, including Maldives, Dallas, Paris and Seoul. The spot which will be aired in English, Arabic and Catalan takes a humorous look at players participating in different activities at each destination.
The launch was done in the presence of Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar al-Baker and Barcelona vice president for economic and strategic affairs Javier Haus along with Neymar and Pique.
“We are pleased to launch our new campaign, featuring some of FCB stars and football greats. We hope that our passengers and football fans around the world enjoy this heart-felt journey as the players travel to a few of Qatar Airways’ destinations,” said al-Baker.
“The ad is a showcase of our partnership. This 60-second clip will run for 18 months in honour of the 18-month partnership so far between Qatar Airways and Barcelona. Qatar Airways and FC Barcelona share common goals. Barcelona is more than a club and we too are more than an airline,” he added.
Barcelona were scheduled to play a friendly match in Doha which got cancelled, and Faus explained the reason for the cancellation.
“We will come to Qatar to play a friendly. We will fulfil it before 2016. This is the only free week that the players had during this busy season. At the end of the day we have to understand that this sport is about the players. We were asked strongly by the team and the coach to let them rest this week,” said Faus.
“And that’s the only reason the friendly was cancelled. I want to express my thanks to Qatar Airways for understanding our situation,” said Faus yesterday.
Faus also insisted  that the Catalan football giants had “zero problems” with Qatar Airways and that the team wanted to retain the sponsorship deal for “many, many more years”.
The five-year, estimated 165mn euro deal is set to expire in 2016. But Faus said that he expected it to be extended.
“We are extremely, extremely satisfied with Qatar Airways,” Faus said.
“I can assure you there are zero, zero, zero problems with Qatar Airways, zero with Qatar and we definitely hope that this partnership lasts many, many, more years,” he added.
Faus also went into details regarding why Barca had picked Qatar as their main sponsor. “We started this relationship in 2010. The sponsorship deal was for six years. When we signed with Qatar it was the first deal which we had signed ever. It was the first brand on our shirt. We were extremely careful about our selection. We chose Qatar for economic reasons. It is evident that we need money to keep the competitive edge. We were looking for a global partner and that we found in Qatar Airways.”
Al-Baker said “political” statements being made by some people regarding the partnership should be ignored.
“You can see that we still have a partnership, we are promoting Barcelona, Barcelona is promoting Qatar Airways and we don’t get carried away by comments of people who may say something which really they don’t mean,” he added.
When asked if Qatar Airways would look into stadium naming rights as part of any new sponsorship deal, al-Baker replied: “Well, anything is possible with Qatar Airways, we are always full of surprises.”