Qatar’s World Cup organizers have announced plans to build new more stadiums ahead of the tournament in 2022 – one on the site of the Qatar Sports Club in Dafna/West Bay, and another near Hamad International Airport.
That brings the total number of confirmed World Cup game venues in Qatar to seven so far.
FIFA requires at least eight venues to be used to host the 64 matches during the international tournament. While Qatar made its bid based on holding games on 12 sites, it will likely pare that number.
The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SCDL) is expected to submit a proposal to FIFA by the end the year, outlining what it believes would be an appropriate number of host venues. The final tally will be decided by the world football governing body’s executive committee in March 2015.
The two latest venues were revealed by SCDL Competition Venues Director Ghanim Al Kuwari while he was speaking earlier this week at the stadiums and arenas international conference Fourth Coliseum MENA ConfEx in Doha, Doha Stadium Plus Qatar reports.
New stadiums
According to DSP, the stadium near HIA is expected to be similar in design to the Doha Port stadium.
Work on the new stadiums is expected to begin in the second quarter of next year, according to Al Kuwari. He added that work was also underway to construct the other facilities needed to host the World Cup.
That includes 64 team-based training sites, headquarters for FIFA, an international broadcast center and 60,000 FIFA hotel rooms, in addition to rooms for the hundreds of thousands of spectators expected to attend the matches.
Neither Qatar Sports Club nor the HIA stadium was mentioned by Qatar during its bid for the 2022 World Cup.
The tournament stadiums were initially slated to be located in Al Wakrah, Doha Port, Al Shamal, Al Khor, Umm Slal, Sports City, Lusail, Qatar University and Education City. And three existing stadiums –Â Al Gharafa, Al Rayyan and Khalifa International – were supposed to be renovated.
So far, only five of these venues have been confirmed, including Al Wakrah, Al Bayt Al Khor, Al Rayyan, Khalifa International and  Education City. The SCDL previously said that works on all of these venues should be underway by the end of this year.
So far, SC has only formally released designs for two of them, Al Wakrah and Al Bayt Al Khor, which are both expected to be finished by 2018.
Al Wakrah
Designed by AECOM and Zaha Hadid Architects – the firm behind the London Aquatics Center built for the 2012 Olympics – Al Wakrah stadium is based on a dhow boat, traditionally used in Qatar for pearl fishing.
The 40,000 seater arena will have detachable top tiers to reduce its capacity to 20,000 after the 2022 World Cup. These modules will be donated to countries in need of sporting infrastructure, according to Qatar’s plans to recycle its stadia after the event.
Qatar-based contractor HBK is doing the enabling works and a main contractor is expected to be announced before the end of the year.
Meanwhile, work is also underway for the Al Bayt stadium in Al Khor, which is modeled on a black and white nomadic tent.
The arena’s exterior will be covered in fabric, while its interior will reflect the traditional red and white fabric of the traditional tent.
The 60,000 seater stadium, which is expected to hold one of the semi-finals, will also be of a modular design, with a removable top tier or seats which will reduce capacity from to 32,000 after the event.
It will be situated atthe heart of a one million square meter complex which will also have community facilities including a hospital, a mall, and a park.
Khalifa Stadium
Details for the design of Khalifa International stadium in the Aspire Zone are expected to be revealed later this month. It is likely that works to the arena will be much more extensive than previously outlined.
Built in 1976 and refurbished in 2005, the current stadium includes an athletics track, which does not conform to FIFA’s requirements for a World Cup venue. Because of the track, spectators there complain about poor sight lines and sitting a long way from the action on the pitch.
Previously, SCDL said the stadium would be refurbished, with a new roof and cooling technology added. When contacted by Doha News, it declined to comment on the news that the works would be more extensive than this, and would include construction of an Olympics and Sports museum within the stadium.
In September this year, SCDL announced that a  joint venture comprising local contracting firm Midmac and a subsidiary of Belgian-based Besix Group, Six Construct had won the contract for the works to the stadium.
The Supreme Committee said the stadium can currently accommodate 34,000 spectators when oriented for FIFA football and would be expanded, but did not provide a specific figure.
Previous reports suggested the facility would be able to seat 68,000 people.
Al Rayyan stadium
Last month, it was announced that Al Rayyan stadium would be totally rebuilt, rather than just refurbished, as SCDL had previously said.
While the design for the stadium would not be revealed until National Day, the SCDL previously said the venue would have facilities including a social club, cricket ground and trails for running or walking. Like the other stadiums, it will also have a removable top seating tier.
Construction is expected to be complete by 2019.
Thoughts?
i live next to qatar sports club….. well im looking forward to being late for work starting next year
I feel your pain. I stay near the C-Ring Road Junction and my daily commute has been increased by an hour.
Just working in Doha my life expectancy and sanity has been reduced by 5 years 🙂
Is that an artist’s impression of the average attendance at Doha football matches?
That’s actually a pretty huge crowd for a QFA game. There are usually more people on the field than in the stands.
Cheers Chilidog, I thought I was being snarky, I never anticipated reality?
More spectators at a Tuesday night darts leauge, at the local boozer, than that “crowd”.
To be fair, my sample size is limited, as I’ve only been to one match in Qatar. But my experience has been corroborated by work colleagues who have been to more. I could literally hear a guy fart who was sitting in the stands across the field from me. So it was either really empty or he had some really bad shwarama. Not much to write home about on the field either.
If you look closely, that isn’t a Doha football match. That’s a 2011 Asian Cup match, described by Wikipedia as….
The AFC Asian Cup 2011 was not without controversy as concerns were risen about the extremely low crowds at most Asian Cup games not featuring the host nation Qatar. The average attendance was just 12,006, much lower than the previous AFC Asian Cup tournaments. North Korea and the United Arab Emirates both had the lowest attendance numbers with approximately 3,000 and 6,000 attendances respectively.[17] The final match between Japan and Australia saw as many as 3,000 to 10,000 fans with valid tickets denied entry to the stadium[18] which then allegedly sparked small skirmishes among fans, “It was just incredibly badly handled. There were kids and families, not causing any problem, being confronted by riot police and being told they weren’t getting in,” according to Andy Richardson, Al Jazeera’s sports correspondent.[19] The AFC stated that the gates were closed early for security concerns and organisers did not anticipate an influx of Japanese and Australian fans. The organising committee has offered to refund all tickets not redeemed at the match.[20]
There were decent amount of attendance in that tournament and I been to a lot of games in “2011 Asian Cup”. That photo was taking before the game was started. But In the QSL matches, no one show up.
I too went to many games and not sure of the well attended game you saw. All I went to were played to mostly empty stadiums.
I’m talking about the “Asian Cup 2011” matches not the local league matches. In the Asian Cup the attendance especially the Arab nations matches were decent.
I’m talking about AC as well.
Decent amount of attendance? lol I went to many games, the stadiums felt cold because it was empty. Are you ok son?
I’m talking about the Asian Cup matches not the local league matches. In the Asian Cup the attendance especially the Arab nations matches were decent..
I am talking about the Asian Cup matches too. It was so empty that they made it for free. Also, refereeing was a little too much if you know what I mean. Listen man I have a question for you. How come Qatar teams have barely any Qatari people on them? Is it true they give national team athletes temporary Qatari passports only to be used during tournaments?
Is it just a DN unfortunately worded headline or is it me thinking that they are still working out the plan on how to hold the world cup. Surely the submission to FIFA must have had chapter on verse on what was going to be provided. And 60,000 FIFA hotel rooms, in addition to rooms for the hundreds of thousands of spectators expected to attend the matches? What exactly are 60,000 FIFA rooms, and where are these 100’s of 1000’s of spectators coming from?
Last week there was a story about a Deloitte report that forecasted how many hotel rooms Doha would be able to realistically support after 2022. Deloitte concluded that Doha would be able to support 38,000 hotel rooms after 2022. Doha currently has 13,600 hotel rooms. Based on last week’s article the “60,000 FIFA hotel rooms” is a reference to the number of hotel rooms that FIFA requires a host nation to have in order to host the tournament. Of course Qatar wasn’t content simply agreeing to meet that ridiculously high number they went and promised to build 100,000 hotel rooms by 2022. Good luck with that.
Link to last week’s article:
https://dohanews.co/report-warns-post-world-cup-hotel-hangover-qatar/
I read the report and commented. Whatever rooms are constructed will be 4* upwards. 100s of 1000s of potential visitors will not want to pay the ridiculous room rates that will be asked -so they won’t come. Doha can’t fill its hotels now and has even less chance after the WC.
If they build a lot of hotel apartments rather than 4* and 5 * hotels ..they can be used as affordable housing after WC2022 when the demand comes down.
All those apts near the castle and the supreme council of health were built to house athletes for the Asian Games and now largely empty.
This whole thing reeks of “We have NO idea what we’re doing….”
I was happy when we got the WC, although Olympics would have been better for the nature of the country. I think they will deliver the stadiums & the hotel rooms. Don’t forget a lot of countries took so much bashing (Brazil, South Africa, Russia and UK) yet they hosted and showed that everything the media do before big tournaments are just babbling.
But these other countries had significantly less on their plate, in terms of unfinished infrastructure and non-existent hotels and stadiums, so it’s not that simple
No, Russia literally build everything from scratches in Sochi. In Brazil they didn’t finished the roofs of two stadiums and no land road to a stadium that was located deep in the Amazon forests. Yet overall they hosted the events well. Qatar had 11 years since the decision was made, at the current work rate they will will finish ahead of time comfortably.
Ok, you’re right, all projects are running ahead of schedule, everything will be fine
I found this FIFA report online:
http://ciperchile.cl/pdfs/2014/06/fifa/GENERAL-BIDING-REPORT.pdf
Apparently 60,000 is simply the minimum number of hotel rooms that FIFA demand the host to make available. Qatar’s bid proposed over 80,000 rooms.
Interestingly, this FIFA document also says that the “minimum requirement” for stadiums is 12, yet now Qatar has reduced that to 8.
If you look closely you’ll see FIFA quoting the bid’s forecast of selling 2,869,000 tickets, to which they reply “the forecast merits review”.
f*** this sh**
best comment so far :)))
Can they finish the street in front of my compound they’ve been working on for 2 years first?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5XlkxjNTgk