During the opening speech in front of Bach and the Emir, Tamim al-Thani, a member of the IOC himself, Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the chair of Qatar Museums, claimed that that the country's "Olympic dream is closer now than ever".

She is probably right.

Under Bach, the Olympic bidding process is more secretive, less transparent and more open to manipulation than ever before. Qatar has already fallen victim itself to, what the IOC describes as a "revolutionary new approach," when Brisbane was last year awarded the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games in a move widely seen as a reward for Bach uber-supporter John Coates, President of the Australian Olympic Committee and a key ally.

At the time it was announced, officials in Doha thought a bid process was still going on having not been informed by the IOC of what was really happening. The first they knew about it was when insidethegames exclusively broke the story that the Australian city was going to be installed as the "preferred" bidder.

Publicly, Doha remained humble, but in private was incandescent with rage and made these views clear to Bach. The country’s controversial bid for the FIFA World Cup grew out of a first snub by the IOC in 2008 when it was not included on the shortlist for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which were awarded to Rio de Janeiro.

IOC President at the time Jacques Rogge claimed it was because the October dates chosen by Doha to stage the Games were outside its recommendations, but many insiders believe it was because he feared the financial muscle that Qatar could bring to the race - which proved to be very prescient.

As I wrote when I first broke the story in June 2008 that Qatar was planning to bid for the World Cup, "They are deadly serious about bringing a major event to Qatar and after the Olympics, the World Cup was always next on their list."

The Olympic Games was always a dream of Qatar’s former Emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, widely credited with modernising the country and turning it into an oil and gas super-power, more than the World Cup.

You can bet that all of Qatar’s soft power is being called upon to ensure that it does not miss out of the Olympics again. The invasion of Ukraine has made Qatar even more influential as Western Governments turn to the tiny country on the Arabian Peninsula to help find alternative sources to Russia for gas. It is a challenge that Doha is happy to take on.

Qatar’s geopolitics strategy, since Hamad became Emir in 1995, has been to build wide-ranging relationships, which have often appeared contradictory but have also sometimes enabled it to play a uniquely useful role. For example, it hosts the United States' Central Command forward headquarters for the Middle East but is also trusted by the Taliban.

As it showed during its successful World Cup bid, Qatar demonstrated that not only was it willing to flex its considerable financial resources, but also was not shy about exploiting these relationships that it had nurtured. Just before the final vote for the World Cup in December 2010, then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy summoned Michel Platini to the Élysée Palace for lunch, where he was surprised to find Tamim al-Thani, the son of the then Qatar Emir, and the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim.

Whatever was discussed, it persuaded Platini, then the President of UEFA and an influential member of the FIFA Executive Committee, who it had widely been expected would back the United States to host the 2022 World Cup, but who instead switched his vote to Qatar.

Bach knows all about Qatar’s influential trade links as for many years he was the chairman of Ghorfa, the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, only stepping down in 2013 shortly after his election as IOC leader following pressure from several Jewish groups.

In the months leading up Qatar being awarded the 2022 World Cup, Ghorfa organised a series of events in Berlin attended by then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leading to a series of investment announcements into the Germany economy. 

It also provided an opportunity for Qatari officials to lobby Franz Beckenbauer, Germany’s FIFA Executive Committee member, who also ended up voting for he Qatari bid. Even nearly 10 years on from Bach resigning as the chairman of Ghorfa, his image still dominates its website, including him meeting key officials in the Middle East with Merkel.

Having rewarded Coates for his loyalty, Bach has one more opportunity to hand Qatar the prize it craves above even other. A successful World Cup at the end of this year, will provide the impetus required by the IOC to push forward a Doha Olympic bid, especially as by then it will be Asia’s turn again after Paris 2024, Los Angeles 2028 and Brisbane 2032.

New Delhi has also been spoken of as a potential candidate for those Games, but they have never been held in the Middle East and it is the sort of legacy-defining decision that would appeal to Bach. It would seem logical that they could be awarded as early as the 2025 IOC session when Bach’s 12-year term as IOC President is due to conclude (unless he changes the rules, which no-one is ruling out).

There is a lengthy list of reasons, of course, why Doha should not host an Olympic Games, including extreme heat, human rights concerns, treatment of foreign workers and its policy on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues. But, as the IOC has demonstrated plenty of times, that when it comes to choosing host cities, like Beijing for this year's Winter Olympic Games, it does not really care about these subjects.

Doha has been knocking increasingly loudly on the IOC’s door for nearly a generation now. It would surprise nobody if, for 2036, it was handed the keys by Bach.