One of the characteristics of the World Cup soccer tournament is the particularly long duration of the tournament, the qualifying rounds started as early as two years ago, until the round of 32 matches have to be played for a month (this year, it is from November 20 to December 18), the tournament may be second only to the World Cup rugby tournament (Note 1), in terms of a single event, the number of stadiums is also quite a lot of, based on the experience of the 64 matches to use 8-10 stadiums is the norm. Based on experience, 8-10 stadiums are the norm for 64 matches, and this World Cup will also use eight stadiums. Since all the top players in the world will be participating in the tournament, the specifications of the stadiums naturally have to be world-class.
Exterior of Lusail Stadium (Source)
The current tournament venues by the size of the country, weather and sustainable development and other factors, so that the planning of its venues have a lot of characteristics of cultural factors, the Middle East soccer development in the world is not outstanding, in the men's soccer world ranking of the top 50 countries in the Middle East region, only Iran and Qatar. In order to comply with the norms of the facilities for the World Football Championships, it is necessary to carry out large-scale construction, the eight venues used this time, there are seven are constructed, and the other is renovated, the overall cost is estimated at 8-10 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for about 4-5% of the 200 billion U.S. dollars of the cost of all the preparations, which is considered to be a drop in the bucket.
Compared to the scale of the previous editions of the handling countries (as shown in Table 1), the venues of this WFC can be said to take a centralized planning, four venues are located in the city of Duha, and the distance between these venues is about 20 kilometers, the other three venues are built on the outskirts of the city, and not more than 30 kilometers away from the city center, and the furthest one is the Al Khor soccer stadium, which is about 120 kilometers away from the city center, which is a good comparison with the 2018 Russia
Roth (name)
World Cup venues can be as far as 4,000 miles away, and to make it easier for fans to move around, a $36 billion rapid transit system plays a key role.
Table 1: List of population and land area of host countries since the 2010 World Football Championships
Race Name
host country
population
Land area (in square kilometers)
South Africa
60 million.
Brazilian
215 million
俄
Roth (name)
143 million
Qatar
2.93 million
Source: Organized by the team
Secondly, the desert climate is a major challenge for both the tournament management and the players. As a result, the tournament was moved from the traditional summer vacation to winter, but even so, the organizing committee used advanced air-conditioning technology to allow the players to play at a more comfortable 18 to 24 degrees Celsius. This technology was tested at the Khalifa International Stadium in 2017, and is now available at all stadiums except for Stadium 974. In addition, in the interest of sustainability, all stadiums are compliant with the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSA).
Exterior of Al Thumama Stadium (Source)
The seating capacity of the other six stadiums is 40,000, except for the Lusar and Al Bait stadiums, which have a seating capacity of 80,000 and 60,000 respectively. These seating capacities are of course in compliance with the FIFA norms, and some of the stadiums are designed to emphasize the culture of the Arab nation, for a brief description of the stadiums and the characteristics of the construction, please refer to Table 2.
Meanwhile, according to the development of soccer in Qatar, the volume of these stadiums will definitely be a difficult issue after the tournament, so the transformation and reduction of the volume of the stadiums will become a necessary means, according to the report, five of the eight stadiums will be dismantled and converted into commercial centers, multi-purpose communities, etc., and the dismantled seats will also be donated to other countries in the development of the seats, which are about 170,000 seats. In addition, three of the stadiums will continue to be used for tournaments, and the post-tournament uses of the stadiums are listed in Table 2.
Qatar is arguably the smallest country in terms of population and land area in terms of hosting the World Cup, and the construction of venues is one of the main focuses of the tournament due to the number of venues needed for the tournament to take place.
The centralized planning is a response to the small size of the country, with public transportation systems connecting most of the venues, and weather conditions making air conditioning systems more necessary. At the same time, sustainability has become a global issue, and this year's venues have all been certified as sustainable, even completing the first detachable soccer stadium.
Another issue is the use of the stadiums after the matches. Since the scale of soccer development in Qatar could not support the operation of the stadiums, more than half of the stadiums were converted to other uses after the matches, and the dismantled seats were sent to developing countries for use. Of course, the stadiums are also styled to match the local culture, such as nomadic tents or Arabian sailboats. To summarize, the overall planning of venues must take into account local factors and international issues.
