Middle it rides East is on a winner as on soft power of sport

TWO photographs illustrate Doha's past. One is of pearl-fishing boats pulled up on the sand, next to a village of huts; the other is of a low-rise city in which the biggest building is the new Sheraton Hotel.

- Chris Blackhurst

The point about these pictures is that they are not that old. The snap of the boats is at the beginning of the 20th century; the cityscape is from the 1980s.

Now Doha is home to some of the world's most spectacular commercial and residential towers. The transformation is remarkable - so reliant was the small community on pearls even as recently as the 1930s that a British resident commented that if the supply dried up, Doha would "practically cease to exist".

Soon, we will see for ourselves what Doha and surrounding Qatar have achieved when we tune in to the World Cup. It's a sight we had better get used to, as PwC research predicts hosting major sporting events across the Gulf region, including Qatar, will grow by 8.7% over the next three to five years.