Is it a lantern? Is it an arc? No, it’s a stadium for Qatar 2022
2 min read
French toast of Croatia in the Russia World Cup is still fresh in the minds of countless football fans across the world when Qatar has decided to ramp up their adrenalin by unveiling one of the world’s most modern and largest stadiums that is to host the game’s ardent followers in 2022.
And, that’s not all. Lusail like the eight other towns where the stadiums are coming up in Qatar would be opened to the world citizens as finest specimens of habitable cities with modern amenities and technology-enabled infrastructure after the World Cup is over.
“Lusail is a city for the future, and once the World Cup is over it will – like each of our other seven stadiums – form a crucial part of the legacy of the tournament as it transforms to become the heart of a brand new community,” said SC Secretary General HE Hassan Al Thawadi, underlining that the stadium is situated at the heart of a whole new city.
Russia had hosted the 2018 cup which saw France beat the underdogs Croatia in a culmination of a thrilling qualifiers that saw some of the greats, including Argentina and Brazil, bite the dust.
About Lusail
- According to the FIFA, the stadium articulates the structure of a golden bowl and has apertures shaped like fanar (lantern) that celebrates the Middle East’s ancient tradition of craftsmanship.
- Lusail Stadium can welcome up to 80,000 fans at a time. The Rungrado May Day Stadium in North Korea with a seating capacity of 114,000 is believed to be the largest football stadium in the world.
- “Lusail has been proposed by the organisers as the venue for the opening and final matches of the tournament taking place in four years’ time,” the FIFA said in a media release.
- The construction of the stadium is scheduled to be completed in 2020. In 2017, Khalifa International Stadium became the first proposed venue to be ready, while two more stadiums are scheduled to be completed early next year – Al Wakrah Stadium and Al Bayt Stadium – in Al Khor.
- There are 8 proposed tournament venues, according to FIFA in Qatar.
- “It will be a very compact World Cup, all the stadiums are within a one-hour maximum distance from each other,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said.
- The climate will be conducive as in November/December when the most followed game in the world opens to its fans who start descending on the Gulf state for a month of festivities on 21 November 2022. The temperature is between 15-25 degrees Celsius in Doha around this time.
- “The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) has appointed Foster + Partners,one of the most innovative architecture and integrated design firms in the world, as the Design Architect for Lusail Stadium, the proposed host venue for the Final of the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar™,” The Qatar Football Association said.
