Qatar's Bid for 2022 World Cup - FIFA Delegates Inspect Infrastructure

News & Pics: Alexis Castelino

Qatar, Sep 15: Qatar 2022 bid chairman Sheikh Mohamed bin Hamad al-Thani struck a confident note on Tuesday September 15 when he said the country’s “honest” attempt to bring the World Cup to the Middle East for the first time would not go in vain.

He was speaking as a six-member FIFA delegation that landed in Doha to inspect Qatar’s facilities to host the mega event in 12 years’ time. “We have been honest about our bid, stadiums and the fact that we will have no white elephants,” he said.

“We are being realistic about the need to meet FIFA’s requirements for the World Cup and also the Confederations Cup in 2021. We will show the world that Qatar is the best partner FIFA can have.”

Talking about Qatar’s stadium cooling technology, Sheikh Mohamed said “We have been honest about it. It is zero carbon and a test run in Al Sadd stadium has already proved that the technology does work. We can cool stadiums and we are now proving we can do it in an environmentally-friendly way. “We will tackle it (the heat) head on and will be very successful.

”Mayne-Nicholls said he was touched by the warm reception upon the delegation’s arrival in Doha and promised a very objective report “For us, these couple of hours have been wonderful,” he said. “We’ll be trying to gather as much information as possible. A report will be prepared in a very objective way.
“And we’ll make sure the FIFA executive committee has every information on hand to take the final decision,” he said.

The FIFA inspectors had a feel of the stadium cooling system when they were shown a prototype of a climate-controlled stadium, where cool air is pumped using second generation technology. They completed the first day’s work by witnessing the Qatar Stars League match between Al Sadd and Al Rayyan at Al Sadd Stadium.

The FIFA team will also see presentations on Qatar’s infrastructure and development plans, including new public transportation networks that will help the country host the most compact World Cup in history.
The team will complete its tour on Wednesday September 15 attending a detailed presentation of eco-friendly stadiums that Qatar proposes to use for the tournament.

The FIFA inspectors will be taken to see the Khalifa Sports City which includes the Aspire Centre for Sports Excellence and Aspetar. They are also scheduled to visit Qatar’s Musuem of Islamic Arts.

The FIFA delegation is headed by Chilean Football Federation president Harold Mayne-Nicholls and includes 2010 World Cup local organizing committee chairman Danny Jordaan, FIFA head of event management Jürgen Müller, media officer Wolfgang Eichler, FIFA marketing executive David Fowler and FIFA administrative executive Ryan Ravens.

Qatar is competing with Australia, Japan, South Korea and the US for the 2022 tournament. FIFA has already completed inspection visits to eight other bidding candidates and will decide the winning bids for both 2018 and 2022 World Cups on December 2.