‘Compact’ Qatar WC awaits fans

Manama : The 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar will be the “ultimate live experience” for football fans, according to the organisers of the tournament who lifted the lid on the compact nature and announced that travelling fans to the Gulf State in six years’ time will be able to watch multiple live game per day and endure minimal travel times between venues.

The Supreme Committee for Delivery and amp; Legacy, the organisation responsible for delivering the stadiums, infrastructure and legacy programmes, has released never before-seen stats using a new bespoke satellite mapping tool. The release of the new data coincides with the six years until kick off anniversary, with the first game set to be played at Lusail Stadium in Qatar on November 21, 2022. It also marks the near halfway mark on the project since the country won the hosting rights on 2 December 2010.

The new tool also enabled the Supreme Committee to map the total ‘Tournament Footprint’, showing how the total square mileage and training pitches required for the World Cup will be contained within a mere 235sqm, equal to less than half the size of Greater London which covers over 670sqm. 

To put that in the context of other major cities in the UK, the total Tournament Footprint is a little over twice the size of Birmingham and four times the size of Manchester and Liverpool.

The Supreme Committee has also been able to map the total distances between stadiums and begin calculating travel times, demonstrating the minimal distances that fans and players will have to travel between stadiums. 

The longest distance between any two venues, Al Bayt – Al Khor City in the North of Qatar and Al Wakrah in the South, is a mere 35 miles, only seven miles further than the distance between Liverpool FC’s Anfield and Manchester United’s Old Trafford.

The shortest distance between any two venues, Khalifa International and Qatar Foundation, is a mere 3.5 miles, one mile shorter than the distance between Arsenal FC’s Emirates Stadium and Tottenham Hotspur’s White Hart Lane.