Chapter 1: questions.
One of the most prominent topics that has preoccupied people's minds in recent months
is the cost of the current edition of the World Cup.
Many media outlets refer to the 2022 Qatar World Cup as the most expensive tournament
in history, citing figures such as $220 billion and $300 billion as the cost of Qatar hosting
the tournament.
But are these numbers really correct?
Is the World Cup worth the money spent on it?
Where was this money spent?
What will Qatar benefit from hosting the most popular tournament in the world?
Chapter 2: How did Qatar win organizing the world cup?
On December 2, 2010, the eyes of the world turned towards the Swiss city of Zurich.
On this day, FIFA announced the outcome of the process of competition between a group
of different countries around the world for the right to host the FIFA World Cup.
The competition was in two versions, namely the 2018 edition, which Russia won, to be
the first country in Eastern Europe to host the World Cup, and the 2022 edition, in which
the competition was between the files of Qatar, Japan, the United States, Australia, and South
Korea, and Qatar won it after fierce competition with the United States, to be the first Arab
country in history to host the world's most important sporting event.
Qatar succeeded in winning the right to host because it presented a strong file, but this
was the easy part, while the difficult part was in preparing Qatar itself to be ready
to host this global event, which will include millions on the land of Qatar and billions
of people who will watch it on screens, and there is no place for failure, because the
reputation of Qatar and the entire region will be at stake.
Chapter 3: Qatar file.
There is a key point for any country file that qualifies to host the World Cup, which
is the infrastructure that actually exists or is planned to be implemented.
FIFA has very strict standards that it imposes on the host countries regarding stadiums,
hotels, transportation, road networks, communications, electricity, and others.
In order for the country to host the World Cup, it must be ready to receive it according
to FIFA standards at the correct time.
When Qatar submitted its file for the first time in May 2010, it did not have the largest
part of the infrastructure projects that the country needed to host the World Cup, but
it presented in the file very ambitious infrastructure plans and projects, which it intends to implement
within the 12 years between winning the right to host and the date of holding the tournament.
In order to host the World Cup, you need two types of infrastructure: The first type is
infrastructure related to the sporting event itself, such as stadiums and training facilities.
The second type is an infrastructure necessary for the sporting event, but it is not linked
to it because it is an infrastructure that the country needs, such as roads, communications,
airports, and sanitation.
Chapter 4: Qatar infrastructure.
As for the first type, the Qataris showed in their file that they would provide 12 stadiums
for the tournament.
There are already three that need renovation and nine that do not exist.
They were just plans on paper, and this is not strange.
South Korea and Japan almost did not have stadiums when they won the right to host the
2002 World Cup together in 1996, but they pledged in their file that each country would
provide ten stadiums.
South Korea built 10 new stadiums, while Japan built 7 new stadiums and renovated 3 others.
In the year 2014, Qatar agreed with FIFA that instead of building 12 stadiums, they would
have 8 stadiums, of which 7 would be completely new and one would be renovated.
This was done in order to save costs, and Qatar has already completed 8 stadiums, which
are the ones that are currently used.
These stadiums are: Al Bayt Stadium, Lusail Stadium, 974 Stadium, Khalifa Stadium, Ahmed
Bin Ali Stadium, Al Janoub Stadium, Education City Stadium, and Al Thumama Stadium.
The construction of these stadiums cost Qatar $6.5 billion.
Mr. Nasser Khater, CEO of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, says that the cost of projects
related to the World Cup and its expenses, including operating and maintenance expenses,
is about $8 billion.
There is an important note regarding the eight World Cup stadiums, which is their proximity
to each other.
There are two stadiums, the distance between them is only 5 km, and the maximum distance
between two stadiums does not exceed 75 km, which is the distance between Al Bayt Stadium
and Al Janoub Stadium.
This is a great advantage for the fans, who will watch more than one match on the same
day, but at the same time it is a very big challenge for the host country, which will
face a density problem.
Chapter 5: Qatar national vision 2030.
Qatar expects to receive 1.5 million visitors from all over the world during the tournament.
These visitors, in addition to the population of Qatar, which is approximately 3 million
people, will be present together in a small area of land, and most of them will move to
and from the stadiums and their surroundings.
If the basic infrastructure in this country, such as roads, airports, seaports, communications,
electricity, hotels, and sanitation, is insufficient, it will collapse under the pressure of sudden
density.
So Qatar has developed a world class infrastructure not only for the World Cup but for the country
itself.
The Qataris began planning infrastructure in 2008, before they submitted their bid to
host the World Cup.
But how did this happen?
If we look at the report submitted by Qatar to host the World Cup, we will find in it
a specific plan whose name was mentioned twice in the report, which is Qatar's national vision
2030.
This is a huge development plan launched by the Qatari government through the General
Secretariat for Development Planning in 2008.
It is a comprehensive plan concerned with environmental, social, human, and economic
development.
What does this plan have to do with the World Cup?
In short, in the framework of Qatar's attempt to convince FIFA of its ability to host the
2022 World Cup, they stated that they already have a comprehensive development plan through
which it is decided to develop huge infrastructure projects to completely change the face of
Qatar by the year 2030.
This connection was one of the main reasons for the Qatari file because, as we mentioned
a short while ago, the most important thing for FIFA in hosting the World Cup is the infrastructure.
From that moment on, the two projects were linked to each other: the Qatar Vision 2030
file, which started in 2008, and the 2022 World Cup file, which Qatar won in late 2010.
However, while the Qatar Vision 2030 had a time span of up to 20 years, the World Cup
only had 12 years, so a large portion of the infrastructure projects that exist within
the Qatar Vision 2030 that will benefit the country during the World Cup, must be implemented
at a faster pace so that they are available in service with the start of the World Cup,
which is what has already happened.
Chapter 6: Bloomberg cost estimates There are different estimates for the costs
of the projects, here we will rely on the latest Bloomberg figures, which consider that
the most expensive is the city of Lusail, which is considered one of the most important
projects of Qatar Vision 2030.
The city of Lusail was built by the Qataris, north of Doha on an area of 38 square kilometers,
capable of accommodating 450 thousand citizens.
It has an electric tram and Lusail Stadium, which can hold 80,000 people and will host
the World Cup's final match.
This city alone costs $45 billion.
There is also the Doha Metro project, which is a network of electric trains, most of which
are underground, that connects the main areas in the city of Doha and its suburbs to each
other.
This project is worth about $36 billion.
And also the expansion and development of Hamad International Airport, so that it can
serve 58 million passengers annually; this is considered one of the largest development
projects in the aviation sector in the Arab region.
Here we are talking about a cost of close to 15.5 billion dollars.
There is also Hamad Port, which opened in 2017, with a capacity of approximately 7.5
million standard containers per year at a cost of $7.4 billion, as well as the development
of Doha Downtown, which cost 4.5 billion dollars, in addition to developing other economic sectors
at a cost of more than 3.2 billion dollars.
If we look at the road networks, we will find that from 2013 to 2022, around 1791 km of
roads were constructed in Qatar, in addition to about 207 bridges and 143 tunnels.
This is in addition to projects in other fields such as tourism, education, health, and entertainment.
The cost of the aforementioned projects takes us to the well-known figure for the cost of
the World Cup in Qatar, which amounts to $220 billion.
This number relates to the infrastructure projects implemented by Qatar during the last
12 years, which it will use during the World Cup, but it is not related to the tournament,
such as the stadiums that Qatar built specifically for the World Cup, and it will not need a
number of them after the end of the tournament.
Despite this, most of the international media treat the $220 billion as a direct cost of
the 2022 tournament, and put it in direct comparison with the costs of previous editions
of the tournament, so why is all this confusion happening?
Chapter 7: Actual cost In a normal situation, huge sports projects
such as hosting the World Cup or the Olympic Games have a two-budget approach.
The idea is simply that there are direct costs that represent the cost of associated utilities
and indirect costs that are represented in the infrastructure that serves everything
in the country.
In most cases, only the costs that are declared as project costs are direct costs.
For example, in February, the Chinese capital, Beijing, hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics,
but how much did this tournament cost?
There are two budgets here.
The Chinese government says that this tournament did not cost more than 3.9 billion dollars,
which makes it the least expensive Olympic Games over the last twenty years.
However, an investigation by the American Insider website says that the real cost may
be more than $38.5 billion, ten times the announced amount.
The question is, which of the two numbers is correct?
In fact, both numbers are correct.
The Chinese government believes that the sums it spent on the Olympic Games, i.e., 3.9 billion
dollars, are the cost of constructing the facilities for the tournament only, that is,
the stadiums, training facilities, and operating expenses.
On the other hand, the media includes the cost of infrastructure projects spent by the
state to serve the Olympic Games within the cost of the tournament.
For example, China spent more than $9.2 billion on a high-speed railway linking Beijing to
the city that was hosting the recent Winter Olympics.
For Insider or the international media in general, $9.2 billion is considered part of
the cost of hosting the tournament, but for the Chinese, it is an infrastructure cost
that has nothing to do with the cost of the tournament, hence the difference in numbers.
Accordingly, the amount of $220 billion that Qatar has spent in the last 12 years, within
the framework of the Qatar Vision 2030, coinciding with its preparations for the World Cup, is
not considered accurate when compared to the cost of the World Cup in Russia or the World
Cup in South Africa.
It is more logical to compare it with the costs of the huge infrastructure plans that
exist in the region.
For example, the Saudi government announced in January 2021 that it would spend $220 billion
on the city of Riyadh, to transform it into a global city by 2030.
In 2016, the UAE announced the allocation of $300 billion to develop the country's infrastructure
until 2030.
Thus, the comparison is more logical, as the three countries in the region have huge infrastructure
plans, and their elements are very similar.
Chapter 8: Qatar's expected gains from the 2022 World Cup.
Mr. Nasser Al-Khater, CEO of the World Cup in Qatar, revealed that the expected economic
revenues from organizing the World Cup will reach 17 billion dollars.
And if this really happens, this will be the highest return in the history of the World
Cup.
This return will result from direct gains such as ticket sales and spending by fans
coming from everywhere.
If Qatar was able to obtain this return, then it is worth every dollar that was spent in
the past years, whether it was a lot or a little.
If the only benefit from the World Cup was direct financial gains only, countries would
not have competed to organize it, as there are other things that earn more money with
fewer costs and less effort.
This takes us to non-financial gains, which, contrary to expectations, are the main motive
behind intense competition between countries to host the World Cup in particular, to the
extent that the leaders of countries compete to win it regardless of its expected cost.
The current edition of the World Cup in Qatar, according to FIFA estimates, is expected to
be watched by five billion people, or nearly two-thirds of the planet's population.
There are people who do not know where Qatar is located on the map, and have never heard
of it before.
For about a month, these people will hear the name Qatar on a daily basis and become
familiar with it.
It is also expected that 1.5 million people from all over the world will visit Qatar to
learn more about the country.
Apart from the direct financial gains, what will Qatar gain after the World Cup ends?
In 2005, a group of four researchers published a study entitled "The Impact of a Major Sporting
Event on Mental Impressions of the Host Country."
In this study, the researchers tried to find out whether South Korea's hosting of the 2002
FIFA World Cup had an effect on tourists' perceptions who visited the country during
the tournament.
According to the study, it turned out that the World Cup fans left South Korea with a
positive impression of it as a safe country and described the Korean people as friendly.
At the same time, South Korea's successful organization of the World Cup contributed
to improving the image of South Korean tourists when they travel to any country.
This type of intangible gain falls under what is called "soft power," which is defined as
the ability to influence the behavior of others in order to achieve desired results.
Political forces in the international arena are classified into two types: hard power
and soft power.
The most important hard power elements are armies, while soft power is the state's ability
to get what it wants through persuasion and attraction rather than coercion.
This kind of power is often derived through the economy, trade, and cultural resources.
Many countries are trying cleverly to compensate for their lack of traditional power tools,
such as a vast area, a large army, and high population density, by developing their soft
power and the tools of influence, because they realize that soft power will provide
them with influence that exceeds that of larger countries in terms of area and population.
In this context, the World Cup is very beneficial for Qatar, and it will be a great asset for
it in the long run, which is why it is worth every dollar spent on it.