5. Their Team Isn't Good Enough
It may sound like a petty and elitist reason to kick things off, but a World Cup is always at its best when the host nation is competitive. For a major sporting event really to capture the imagination it needs to have the local population behind it. If their team progresses to the later stages of the competition then it creates a far more positive attitude around the whole tournament. Just look at the improved national mood in this country during the 2012 Olympics. Conversely, a tournament can start to lack a little something in atmosphere after the host's elimination. South Africa, in 2010, were probably the first and, so far, only host nation who wouldn't have qualified for the competition by the normal route. Boosted by home support they gave a decent showing, beating France, but also became the first host not to make it out of the First Round, which was a bit of a let down for the tournament as a whole. At least South Africa were a reasonable team. A more talented previous generation had become African champions and qualified for the World Cup under their own steam in the immediately post-apartheid 90s. The Qatar team have no such pedigree. They have never qualified for the World Cup and only made it out of the First Round of the Asian Cup once. Currently 108th in the FIFA World Rankings, just below Azerbaijan and Botswana, Qatar failed to qualify for the upcoming World Cup. They only managed to beat one team, Lebanon, in their final qualifying group. Three humiliating defeats and a quick exit from the competition is not going to make for an enthusiastic set of local fans or, necessarily, advance the development of Qatari football.