Journalist Valery Prigornitsky told why it is difficult for Ukrainians to get to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
“Because of the damned war in Qatar, the citizens of Ukraine are fearfully treated. My Hayya Card (a visa to enter the country for the period of the 2022 World Cup) was confirmed a few days before departure. A friend, Ruslan from Odessa, who works as a sailor, was not lucky. He was forced to make his way to Qatar through the nine circles of hell. By the beginning of the championship, he did not have a visa and only tickets to Qatar burned down. Therefore, he decided to go for broke - to fly to Qatar without a visa. However, conditionally, from Warsaw or Istanbul, no one will be allowed to board a plane without a visa.
Ruslan learned that it is only possible to fly to Qatar without having a Hayya Card in his hands from Dubai. There, planes leave for Doha like regular buses - twice an hour. And there are many like him without a visa. There were about thirty visa-free people on his plane. All of them resolved their issues on the spot at Doha airport. On average, this procedure took no more than half an hour, but Ruslan had to deal with the Hayya Card issue for 5.5 hours. His documents and personality were carefully studied, motivated by the fact that he could settle in Qatar as a refugee. Ruslan even had to show scans of all contracts with employers.
And if he, in the end, managed to get to Qatar, then three other Ukrainians did not. This is the kind of misfortune that will befall fellow countrymen here. The most unpleasant thing is that the Russians are allowed in without problems, there were a lot of them at the Brazil-Serbia match. In fact, in Qatar, they don’t worry about the war in Ukraine, ”Prigornitsky said.