FIFA World Cup Opening Ceremony | BTS singer Jung Kook performs ‘Dreamers’ for first time in Qatar

 FIFA World Cup Opening Ceremony LIVE updates: BTS singer Jung Kook performs ‘Dreamers’ for first time in Qatar 2022 WC event

Qatar on Sunday opened the Middle East’s first FIFA World Cup before global leaders and soccer fans who have poured into this energy-rich nation after it was battered by a regional boycott and international criticism.

With American actor Morgan Freeman’s dulcet voice and an Arabian theme with camels, the opening ceremony began with a promise of “everyone is welcome.”

Regardless of the outcome of Qatar versus Ecuador on the pitch, Doha already has drawn Saudi Arabia’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the opening ceremony and inaugural match of the tournament.

That Prince Mohammed, whose nation had closed Qatar’s only land border to the world through the kingdom over a yearslong political dispute, will attend shows how far the rapprochement between the two nations has gone.

Newspaper columns during the crisis had even suggested digging a trench along the 87-kilometer (54-mile) border and filling it with nuclear waste at the height of the conflict. While rhetorical bluster, it showed how deeply the anger ran in the region amid the dispute — which Kuwait’s then-ruler suggested nearly sparked a war.

Its root came from Qatar’s stance in supporting the Islamists who rose to power in Egypt and elsewhere following the 2011 Arab Spring. While Qatar viewed their arrival as a sea change in the gerontocracies gripping the Mideast, other Gulf Arab nations saw the protests as a threat to their autocratic and hereditary rule.

Qatar also faced criticism from the West as groups they funded initially in Syria’s civil war became extremists. Qatar later would deny that it ever funded Islamic extremists, despite criticism from across the American political spectrum from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump.