Khalifa Stadium likely to open by mid-2017

The Khalifa International Stadium (KIS) that is being redeveloped to host FIFA Wold Cup 2022 is expected to open by the end of second quarter of this year.

“We are moving as per our schedule to complete all projects related to the World Cup 2022 on time, said Nasser Al Khater, Assistant Secretary- General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC) in a talk show on Qatar TV.

“KIS will be the first stadium to be ready and will be opened by the end of second quarter of 2017. KIS will be followed by Al Khor and Al Wakrah stadiums that are slated to be completed by end of 2018. Al Rayan and Qatar Foundation stadiums will open in 2019 while the remaining stadiums will be also ready by the end of 2020,” said Al Khater.

“Now we are focusing on eight stadiums that would host the world Cup 2022 but final decision regarding the number of stadiums will be taken in May this year,” he added.

Qatar will benefit in many ways directly and indirectly with World Cup 2022 during the hosting of this giant sport event and aftermath in long term. The direct income will come from the visitors and spectators of Qatar 2022 by providing them housing and other services.

In the long term, the event will boost the tourism industry significantly as it happened with countries that organised previous football world cup championships, which is one of the biggest sport event in the world.

Germany has benefitted immensely by organising the world cup. Before hosting the  2006 championship, Germany was known for industry and production but after this giant sport event its tourism sector witnessed remarkable boom.

“We expect about a million or a million-and-a-half visitors and spectators during Qatar 2022 which is more than visitors hosted by other countries in the past. The previous host countries of Fifa World-Cup received about 500,000 to 600,000 visitors,”

But Qatar’s geographical location and its other factors like having Qatar Airways and supported by other regional airlines like Emirates will help to attract more visitors during the event.

Fifa will require 60,000 hotel rooms and we promised to provide about 90,000 rooms including hotel rooms and apartments, rooms in Cruise ships. Some buildings and compounds will be also turned into accommodations for spectators and villages for spectators will be built. We expect to achieve the target by 2022.

Sports Villages for spectators will have different type of housing facilities. Some will be like camp-shaped while other will be three and five-starred hotels in a bid to serve all sections of spectators and visitors.

We focused to utilise the facilities related to Qatar 2022 like stadiums after the event. Some stadiums will be turned into clubs for the residents of the respective localities. And others will cater to the surrounding population in other different ways.

© The Peninsula 2017