The European Tour is taking a watching brief over the diplomatic crisis engulfing Qatar and says it will be guided by the UK Home Office if necessary as it considers its scheduled 2018 stopover in Doha.

While Football’s 2022 FIFA World Cup is the headline event under a cloud following Monday’s decision by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt to sever ties with the Gulf state citing alleged terrorism concerns, the 2018 Qatar Masters is a more pressuring sporting concern.

The suddenness and severity of the actions taken by Qatar’s three Arabian Gulf neighbours and Egypt came as a surprise to many in the region, let alone to the European Tour presumably.

However, with 47 tournaments in 26 countries, security is an on-going challenge for the Tour and has only been heightened by three recent terrorist attacks in London and Manchester.

A European Tour spokesman told GolfDigestME.com it would continue to monitor the fluid developments in what has been described as the worst diplomatic crisis to hit Gulf Arab states in decades. Yemen and the Maldives also cut ties with Doha which has rejected the accusations, calling them “unjustified” and “baseless”.

“The European Tour constantly monitors what is happening in all of our host countries, taking any advice from the Home Office where appropriate and we will continue to do so for all our tournaments around the world,” the spokesman said in a statement.

There was already uncertainly surrounding the $2.5 million Doha Golf Club event before Monday’s developments, with on-going sponsorship and scheduling challenges.

While the European Tour won’t release its 2017-18 schedule until October at the earliest, Golf Digest Middle East understands the Qatar Masters, traditionally the middle event of the Tour’s three tournament, early-season Desert Swing, is to be moved to a date after the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and Omega Dubai Desert Classic are played back-to-back in late-January, early February.

It all means a scheduled meeting between Nick Tarrartt, Director of the European Tour’s Dubai office, and Qatar Masters officials next week now takes on even greater importance.

But how even that meeting will be held is now up in the air with the UAE among those to close its airspace and waters to Qatar aircraft and vessels and cancel all commercial flights to and from Doha. Qatari diplomats have been given 48 hours to leave the UAE and Qatari citizens residing in the seven emirates 14 days to vacate.

South Korean 21-year-old Jeunghun Wang won the famed Pearl Trophy at Doha GC in late January when he edged Swede Joakim Lagergren and South African Jaco Van Zyl in a playoff.

Adam Scott, Ernie Els, Henrik Stenon, Retief Goosen, new European Ryder Cup captain Thomas Bjorn, Paul Lawrie, Sergio Garcia and Branden Grace are former Qatar Masters champions.