ROAD TO WORLD CUP: A Qatari dream is now a reality

ON the evening of December 2, 2010, Joseph Blatter, the former president of the International Football Association (FIFA), announced that Qatar had won the honour of hosting the 2022 World Cup, in a scene that will not be forgotten by football fans in the Arab world and across the world. This was the first time that an Arab Middle Eastern country had succeeded in winning the honour of hosting this event.

Since that night, the dream began, and after more than 4,380 nights, the dream comes true, when Italian Daniele Orsato’s whistle sounds on Sunday evening, announcing the start of the opening match of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.

A dream was born 12 years ago, but when dreams are entrusted to Qatari hands and minds, trust that they will come true to the fullest and most wonderfully than the imagination itself.

The journey of realizing the dream of hosting the World Cup finals was full of details and hard work, since the first day of Qatar’s announcement of its desire to host the World Cup, Qatar promised the world sophisticated stadiums where the most important football tournament matches would be held. Rather, the promise came with a challenge, which is that the stadiums will be at the highest level reached by stadium technology in the world and with the finest designs in building sports facilities. Qatar believed in its promise.. It provided the world with 8 impressive stadiums with modern technology, eco-friendly and sustainable heritage.

The establishment and development of the World Cup stadiums was accompanied by a revolution in the field of infrastructure modernisation in every inch of the land of Qatar, sea and land ports, an airport that is the best in the world, electricity and communications, health and educational facilities, tourism and entertainment facilities and many more that surprise the visitor, and even the resident of Qatar.

In the road sector, the world has been amazed by the amount of achievement of roads, bridges and tunnels that exceeds any imagination, and in record time, and in light of challenges that are the greatest of their kind.

With every grain of sand transferred to an infrastructure project or World Cup equipment, Qatar emphasized in the first place that its projects conform to environmental specifications and be carbon-neutral and eco-friendly.

The journey of the Qatari dream was not an easy thing. Without the culture of the people and their support for their goals, nothing would have been achieved. Building the human being is the optimal investment in which Qatar succeeded along with building the World Cup equipment and requirements.

The Qatari sports fans did not depend on Qatar winning the honor of organizing the World Cup, rather, it was fueled for winning more Gulf, Asian and Arab titles. During the years of realizing the dream, Qatari football witnessed dreams that come true every year and titles are achieved and harvested on every occasion.

When Qatar harnessed its financial capabilities to achieve the dream of the World Cup, it was aware from the first moment that what it will spend will bring success and brilliance, and it has confirmed throughout the years of preparation for the tournament that it will be an exceptional tournament in everything and has succeeded in that, according to everyone’s testimony.

Hours before the start of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, Qatar is turning the page of preparation to open a page in the history with the main title “How the dream become a reality?”.

In the field of infrastructure, Qatar, since it won the honor of hosting the World Cup, has turned into a huge workshop to implement new projects in this sector that serve the World Cup and be a legacy for future generations through a comprehensive vision that meets the standards of hosting major sporting events and at the same time achieves the goals of Qatar’s National Vision 2030.

Over the past years, Qatar has implemented infrastructure projects that included all vital sectors such as sports facilities, stadiums, roads, hotels, communications, transportation, health and other projects that will bear witness to the development achieved by Qatar in a short period of time.

According to official data, Qatar has spent about $220 billion on infrastructure projects, an amount that does not include building stadiums and sports facilities for the World Cup only, but covers all infrastructure projects in the country, including roads, hotels, sports facilities, health facilities and other expenses that cover all sectors in the country.

In previous statements by officials of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, as well as state officials, they confirmed that the World Cup in Qatar is more than just a sporting event, as hosting the tournament for the first time in the Middle East was a base for launching and accelerating giant projects, a large percentage of which are infrastructure projects. They are also projects that future generations will benefit from for decades, and not just projects that serve the World Cup only.

The spending of Qatar on infrastructure projects was carefully studied and described by many analysts and economists as a philosophy in the right direction, as all these infrastructure projects aim to bring about a qualitative leap in economic and tourism development in Qatar, and an element of attraction for foreign investment that contributes to support strengthening the national economy.

Over the past years, Qatar has managed to build more than 100 new hotels within a luxury hotel chain, bringing the total number of rooms in the country to more than 30,000 hotel rooms. The metro network “Doha Metro” has been completed, which includes about 38 stations covering all important locations in the country.

Qatar has accomplished pioneering infrastructure projects in the field of communications and digital transformation over the past years, making the

FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 the first edition of the World Cup to rely entirely on 5G technologies, while the speed of internet data downloads in stadiums will be among the fastest in the World

Cup tournaments. The World

Cup in Qatar will also be one of the first tournaments to use the best and latest digital technologies at all.

In the State of Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup, many infrastructure projects were established in the health sector, which in recent years has attained advanced global centers thanks to modern facilities and medical technologies used, as the number of public hospitals in the State of Qatar reached 10, in addition to specialized medical centers, while the number of primary health centers reached 30 health centers distributed throughout the State of Qatar.

Not far from the capital, Doha, Lusail City is the biggest witness to the infrastructure projects completed by Qatar. It is a completely new city and is considered one of the largest digital cities in the world.

The city includes all vital facilities, in addition to hosting Lusail Stadium, where the World Cup final will be held.

Qatar has also developed, in its hosting of the World

Cup,

the city of Msheireb Downtown Doha, which is a fully digital city and bears witness to the strong achievements in the journey to host the World Cup, as the city includes thousands of housing units as well as commercial, recreational and vital facilities. Qatar also built the Pearl Island project, which are artificial islands and a city full of luxury of modern life.

Qatar has recently opened several tourism, entertainment and residential projects, which are considered a large part of the infrastructure completed in the journey of hosting the World Cup, the first tournament in the Middle East, the Arab and the Islamic world.

In the field of roads, and with the aim of promoting a healthy lifestyle, Ashghal has implemented 2,131 km of pedestrian and bicycle tracks in most of the local road and highway projects. These paths are connected to all stadiums hosting the World Cup, in addition to the construction of more than 16 bridges and five pedestrian tunnels.

Traffic safety procedures and conditions are taken into consideration when designing these lanes; It is designed to make it safe when entering traffic junctions along the road. Pedestrian and bicycle tracks also connects between the stadiums hosting the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and fan zones, as well as their residential areas, and tourist areas known as attractions.

These routes also connect to bus stations, metro stations, parking, (Park & Ride), and (Park & Walk). In cooperation with the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy and other concerned authorities in the country, Ashghal has completed car parks on a total area of more than 6 million square meters, and has completed the total work of the Bus depots in Lusail area project, which comes within the state’s plan to develop the transportation sector. The Lusail bus depot provides parking for nearly 478 electric buses serving the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 matches.

The Supervisory Committee for Beautification of Roads and Public Places in the country is improving the features of the city of Doha through the development and expansion of some roads and the development of many intersections, which in turn contribute to enhancing irrigated safety and achieving the required flow on the road network during the tournament and after the tournament.

It includes 900,000 trees and more than 11 million square meters of green space, in addition to 11 parks and a multi-use green yard, as well as the development of 12 beaches in various regions of the country.

In the highway sector, the authority was able to implement 1,791 km of roads, including 207 bridges and 143 tunnels, the most important of which are Al Majd Road with a length of 195 km and the Sabah Al-Ahmad Corridor with a length of 29 km due to their role in linking many roads serving the World Cup stadiums.

Concerning the environment, the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 is the first carbon-neutral World Cup in history, as the State of Qatar has worked to establish global standards in the field of environmental conservation, thus forming a role model in major global tournaments.

The issue of the environment remained at the forefront of Qatar’s concerns during its hosting of the World Cup. Since it began implementing the facilities and activities related to the tournament, it has been keen to build a sustainable environmental legacy that will benefit future generations, through the strategy of organizing the first carbonneutral World Cup in line with international efforts calling to confront climate change.

Qatar has succeeded in building sustainable stadiums, including design, construction, energy and water use, as well as installing stations to measure air quality, gas emissions and dust in all World Cup stadiums, in addition to organizing a mechanism for sorting waste during the stadium construction phase, to reduce the carbon footprint, and to recycle about 80% of the waste generated from the construction of the World Cup stadiums.

Qatar’s imprint in preserving the environment during the World Cup preparations journey is more evident in the transportation sector, as 25 percent of public buses have been replaced with electric buses for use during the tournament, which is an unprecedented record and historical achievement, and last April, the Ministry of Transport received the last batch of buses. There are 130 electric buses, to complete the supply of all electric buses, with 741 electric buses to be used during the tournament.

Later on, the buses will become a permanent legacy for mass transportation of clean energy after the World Cup. In the same context, the Lusail bus depot, which was inaugurated last October, is the largest electric bus depot in the world, with a capacity of 478 buses, and comes within the public transport bus infrastructure program.

The journey of building the eight stadiums for the championship and its commitment to the standards of reducing carbon emissions, reducing energy and water consumption, reusing water and materials and recycling, reflect the awareness of the competent authorities of the importance of confronting climate change and limiting its effects.

The Qatari efforts in the World Cup journey are in line with the trends of sustainability and the desire to achieve balanced and sustainable growth. Some World Cup facilities were designed temporarily, and some of them can even be dismantled, such as Stadium 974, which was built from shipping containers and detachable materials including walls, ceiling and seats, as well as the use of high cooling systems which are eco-friendly in all stadiums, innovative lighting technologies that meet the requirements of sustainability.

In conjunction with the rapid changes on the environmental level, Qatar has taken good qualitative steps, as it has practically opened Al-Kharsaah solar power plant project, which meets about 10 percent of the demand for electric energy, and its national plans include hundreds of initiatives to reduce emissions or adapt to the effects of climate change, in addition to the obvious progress in the field of renewable energy, as well as plans to expand the field of waste-to-energy.

Over the past 12 years, with a weekly spending rate of $500 million, Qatar paved the way for the World Cup and provided it with all the reasons for success in terms of equipment, sports construction, infrastructure and logistics associated with it.

Reports published by the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) on its official website indicate that the cost of constructing the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 stadiums and training pitches amounted to QR 23 billion, spread over twelve years. This budget is similar to the budgets of the last editions of the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games.

In a related context, the expenditures that Qatar injected to build an infrastructure capable of absorbing the momentum that the World Cup will create in the joints of the national economy amounted to about USD 200 billion over the past period to establish a non-football infrastructure such as the construction of a new metro network in the capital, Doha.