I agree PM, a citizen is a citizen. However, in the case of athletes becoming Qatari, they are offered large sums of money to leave their home country and compete for Qatar instead. They often have to change their name as well. So I believe they are far from naturalised citizens, which I'd consider to be someone who'd come to live in Qatar for several years and made it their home.
I've also heard rumours that a lot of them don't even live in Qatar, they are given a Qatari passport when it comes to competition time. This may or may not be true though.
Now Qatar haven't technically done anything wrong, otherwise the athletes wouldn't be allowed to compete at all. But this sort of thing has caused a big stir in the athletics community and their are calls for the rules to be tightened.
I agree PM, a citizen is a citizen. However, in the case of athletes becoming Qatari, they are offered large sums of money to leave their home country and compete for Qatar instead. They often have to change their name as well. So I believe they are far from naturalised citizens, which I'd consider to be someone who'd come to live in Qatar for several years and made it their home.
I've also heard rumours that a lot of them don't even live in Qatar, they are given a Qatari passport when it comes to competition time. This may or may not be true though.
Now Qatar haven't technically done anything wrong, otherwise the athletes wouldn't be allowed to compete at all. But this sort of thing has caused a big stir in the athletics community and their are calls for the rules to be tightened.
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