It also underscores north Africa's domination in a tournament that served as a World Cup dress rehearsal for Qatari organisers. 2022 World Cup test eventThe African continent had six representatives at the tournament, last staged in 2012 but revived by Fifa in an expanded 16-team format to include more participants from across the Arab world and test Qatar's readiness for the World Cup. Countries often travelled with reserve squads because clubs were not compelled to release their players for the Arab Cup, a tournament outside of the Fifa calendar. More than 500,000 tickets were sold for the 32 matches across six stadiums, all World Cup venues, the bulk of which went to Qatari residents. The Arab Cup allowed Qatar's 2022 World Cup organisers to test operations and stage the matches in a bio-secure way through the introduction of Fan IDs and a local contract-tracing application.

Source: The North Africa Journal December 19, 2021 07:45 UTC