So you can imagine how the quartet would love to see Qatar cut down to size, how they would sneer that their rival was too small and puny to host a World Cup on its own.

These countries are essentially bullies who believe Qatar needs to know its place.

They hate the way the Doha government supported pro-democracy revolutions during the Arab Spring, when they themselves have launched brutal clampdowns on protestors who threaten their royal rule.

They hate Qatar’s internationally respected television station, Al Jazeera, because it represents a free press.

They hate, in short, the fact that Qatar is a sovereign nation pursuing an independent foreign policy, refusing to do what it is told.

This is most glaringly demonstrated by Qatar’s close relations with Iran, whom the Saudis abhor, but with whom Doha maintains diplomatic relations because the two countries share a natural gas field on which the tiny Gulf state’s huge wealth is based.

The quartet will be rejoicing if Qatar is forced to share its hosting of the World Cup with Kuwait or, heaven forfend, one of them. But it’s difficult to see how that could happen in the current climate.

Kuwait is the most likely after it stepped in to host the 2017 Gulf Cup when Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE said they would boycott the event if it was hosted in Qatar.

However the Jaber Al-Ahmad International Stadium is the only venue in Kuwait that’s able to meet the standards of a World Cup without renovation. And the clock’s ticking.

In a way, Qatar’s words are coming back to haunt it.

When, back in 2010, it won the right to host the tournament it made great play of saying that the Fifa vote was not just a victory for Qatar, but for the whole Middle East, which has not hosted the event before.

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