Tribune News Network
Doha
A total of 16 business councils and chambers of commerce gathered at the Ritz Carlton to celebrate the pre-World Cup networking event in the presence of 14 ambassadors.
Not only were the attendees from nearly half of the World Cup qualifying countries, but also from business councils whose members actively supported the country in the preparation of Qatar 2022 World Cup.
The introductory speech was made by Dr Fariborz Samadian of the Swiss Business Council who declared: "It’s been three years since we haven’t had so many business councils and chambers of commerce united and we’re very happy with such a big turnout of business people celebrating their involvement in Qatar’s success and readiness as the host for the 2022 World Cup.”
The keynote speaker was Dr Nebojsa Popovic, former Olympic gold medallist, orthopaedic surgeon and presently Senior Medical Advisor at Aspetar in charge of medical support for the World Cup.
Ukrainian pianist Denys Bodnar, faculty at Qatar Music Academy and opera and chamber singer Galina Knyazeva (Galina’s repertoire includes masterpieces of world classical music; arias from Italian, French, Czech, German, Ukrainian operas and Ukrainian folklore songs) entertained the gathering. They were followed by international musicians later in the evening.
Winners of the raffle got football-themed prizes such as jerseys from La Liga’s Football Teams and dinner on board of the Golden Horizon Cruise ship which will host Croatian football fans.
Some of the business council officials were wearing their teams’ colour such as orange ties for the Dutch Business Council Members. The other participating organisations were: Advantage Austria, AHK and GBCQ (German), Amcham (American), Spanish and French chambers, Canadian, Croatian, Polish, QBBF (British), Ukrainian, Swedish, Swiss and Turkish business councils.
Some of the business council members sponsored the event such as Firma Events, Nescafe and Novelty.