Qatar invested $220 billion in the organisation of the World Cup

• Posted on November 21, 2022November 21, 2022
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The World Cup in Qatar will be by far the most expensive in history. 

An unreal 220 billion dollars were invested in its organization, which is almost 20 times more than Russia spent four years ago. 

Qatar allocated between 6.5 and 10 billion dollars for the construction of eight modern stadiums, but this is only a drop in the sea of ??costs. Namely, most of the money was spent on the construction of roads, airports, subways, hotels, and even entire cities for the future of this Arab country. 

“The World Cup is part of the project”National Vision Qatar 2030“, a broader government strategy that promotes the intensive development of urban and national facilities and industry, in addition to education and health care systems,” said Fatma Al Nuaimi, executive director of communications at the tournament. 

“Most of these major infrastructure projects, which will be used by teams and fans during the tournament, such as new roads, metro, airport, hotels and other tourist facilities, were planned even before we got the organization of the World Cup,” revealed Al Nuaimi. 

The development of infrastructure required huge investments. The construction of the metro alone, which opened in 2019, cost about 36 billion dollars. Qatar spent 16 billion dollars for the impressive Hamad International Airport, and an unreal amount of money was spent on the construction of a new city! 

The new city of Lusail was built on the desert coast and has space for comfortable accommodation for about a quarter of a million inhabitants and tens of thousands of tourists. 

Although the World Cup significantly stimulated the realization of these projects, they were allegedly planned even before the organization of the World Cup, because the main goal is to transform the nation into an advanced society capable of sustaining its development and providing a high standard of living for its citizens. However, the question is what the dynamics would have been if FIFA had not pushed the matter by awarding the organization. 

United States of America 1994 – $500 million. 

France in 1998 – $2.3 billion. 

Japan in 2002 – 7 billion dollars.

Germany in 2006 – $4.3 billion. 

South Africa in 2010 – $3.6 billion. 

Brazil in 2014 – $15 billion. 

Russia in 2018 – $11.6 billion. 

Qatar 2022 – 220 billion dollars.

All that, unfortunately, had a price in human lives as well. The fact that more than 6.5 thousand people lost their lives during the construction of these ultra-modern facilities, who worked in inhumane conditions, casts a shadow over all the glamor that accompanies this unprecedented football spectacle. 

-Courier sport