World football authority FIFA has selected Qatar to host the 2022 football World Cup finals after a ballot of its 22 executive members in Zurich on December 2.
The Gulf state defeated bids from South Korea, Japan, Australia and the US. Qatar will be the first country in the region to host a major sporting event.
Doha’s successful bid is set to launch a huge infrastructure investment program in the Gulf state. With the country’s economy expected to grow by 15.5% this year and soar by 21% in 2011, Qatar is set to embark on an enormous investment program to build stadiums and associated infrastructure needed for the event. The total cost of construction work is expected to be about USD 6 billion.
Under the proposals submitted to FIFA, Doha will renovate three stadiums and build nine new ones with the 12 venues divided among seven host cities. This includes the proposed 86,000 capacity Lusail Stadium which is expected to be completed by 2019 and is scheduled to host the opening and final matches.
Bid organizers said that all the stadiums will be climate-controlled and zero carbon emitting to combat what could be temperatures as high as 50 degrees centigrade during the two hottest months of the year. The country has also launched a huge spending policy in recent years to accommodate its growing population, investing billions on rail, air and road links. Plans are also in place to complete a metro system to connect each stadium by 2017.
The country is also set to invest heavily in its hotel and tourism infrastructure to cope with an influx of approximately 400,000 fans. The country currently has around 50,000 hotel rooms but bid leaders have promised that 95,000 will be available come 2022.