World Cup
FIVE YEARS AHEAD, QATAR UNVEILS REVOLUTIONARY STADIUM CAPABLE OF RELOCATING
With attention largely focused on the World Cup 2018, especially the Final Draw holding this weekend in Moscow, the 2022 hosts, Qatar has offered some diversions with an eye-popping design for a venue that will not be used until five years from now.
The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy which Qatar has put together for the delivery of the first ever World Cup to hold in a desert region has unveiled the plan for the Ras Abu Aboud Stadium, which is the seventh among those proposed for World Cup 2022.
With technology matching the needs of the future, the stadium will be the first ever fully demountable FIFA World Cup stadium and will be capable of seating 40,000 spectators.
Considering what has happened at the previous World Cup host countries where newly constructed stadiums later turned to be white elephant projects, the Ras Abu Aboud Stadium has legacy prospects.
It has combined tournament experience and legacy planning in a revolutionary way.
According to news release from the FIFA website, the venue is capable of being reassembled on another site or turned into multiple smaller venues both for sports and other purposes.
According to its specifications, the stadium to be made of modular building blocks will have removable seats, concession stands, lavatories and other fundamental stadium elements.
“Innovation has always been central to our plans for delivering a historic FIFA World Cup that leaves a legacy for Qatar and the world, and there is no better example of this than the design of Ras Abu Aboud Stadium,” SC Secretary General H.E. Hassan Al Thawadi remarked.
“This venue offers the perfect legacy, capable of being reassembled in a new location in its entirety or built into numerous small sports and cultural venues. All of this in a stadium that delivers the atmosphere fans expect at a World Cup and which we will build in a more sustainable way than ever before. I’m delighted with this design and confident that Ras Abu Aboud will become a blueprint for future mega-event planners to follow.”
Ras Abu Aboud’s modular design also means construction of the venue will require fewer materials, create less waste and reduce the carbon footprint of the building process. Thanks to this sustainable approach to the stadium’s construction, Ras Abu Aboud will receive a four-star Global Sustainability Assessment System certification.
“Qatar is delivering superb results in terms of sustainability, including the proposed design for Ras Abu Aboud Stadium,” said Federico Addiechi, FIFA’s Head of Sustainability & Diversity.
“From day one, there has been a strong emphasis on sustainability from Qatar, including a commitment to ensure that all infrastructure meets strict design, build and operations criteria under the GSAS certification programme.
“GSAS is the most far reaching green building certification. In addition to design and build, it also measures operations. This has actually informed the 2026 FIFA World Cup bidding process. Bidders are now required to adhere to all three steps regarding new developments, while existing buildings should be operated according to agreed sustainability guidelines.”
The 40,000-seat venue is slated for completion in 2020 and will be located in a 450,000m2 waterfront site on Doha’s shore, where the use of shipping containers as one of the main building blocks will echo the nearby port. Situated just southeast of Doha and a mere 1.5 kilometres from the city’s state-of-the-art Hamad International Airport, it will be serviced by excellent transport links, including a dedicated stop on Qatar Rail’s Gold Line (less than a ten-minute ride from Doha’s central Msheireb Station and just 25 minutes from the airport), direct road connections to the centre of Doha and Al Wakrah, and potentially even a water taxi stop.
The stadium precinct, meanwhile, will offer exceptional views over Doha’s landmark Corniche and into the downtown West Bay area, making it an ideal location for a waterfront development after the tournament and ensuring a vibrant local legacy. Its design also reinforces Qatar’s commitment to leaving a physical legacy proportionate to Qatar’s needs after the tournament, while heralding a new era of sustainable tournament infrastructure that can broaden the range of countries able to host such mega-events.
The launch of the design of Ras Abu Aboud Stadium follows the design launch of Al Thumama Stadium in August 2017 and the completion of Khalifa International Stadium for the Emir Cup Final 2017 in May. Ras Abu Aboud Stadium is one of eight proposed host venues for the World Cup.
The World Cup that marks 100 years of the competition may be six years away, the jostle for the two key matches – the opening and the final – has turned a two horse race.
In all, there will be 104 matches. Morocco is jostling with Spain to host one of the two key matches.
Portugal is ruled out for either the opening or the final match as it has no stadium with capacity of over 65,000.
The biggest stadium in Portugal is Estádio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica.
Morocco on the other hand is planning on what will be the largest stadium in the world.
The Grand Casablanca Stadium is being designed to hold 115,000 spectators in its bowel.
According to Paris-based publication, Jeune Afrique, Casablanca is favoured to host the opening match.
Other countries besides the hosts are set to hold matches. Three matches will be held in South America – one in Montevideo, in Uruguay, where the first World Cup took place in 1930, one in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and another in Asuncion, Paraguay. The remaining 101 matches have yet to be allocated.
Sources close to the matter suggest that 20 stadiums (11 in Spain, 6 in Morocco, and 3 in Portugal) could host the World Cup matches.
Other countries besides the hosts are set to hold matches. Three matches will be held in South America – one in Montevideo, in Uruguay, where the first World Cup took place in 1930, one in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and another in Asuncion, Paraguay. The remaining 101 matches have yet to be allocated.
Morocco, on the other hand, has chosen six stadiums; Rabat, Fez, Agadir, Marrakech, Tangier, and the Grand Casablanca Stadium in Benslimane.
It is estimated that Morocco will host at least a third of the matches. we can roughly estimate that Morocco will have around a third of the 101 matches to be allocated, give or take,” a source close to the matter told Jeune Afrique.
A source quoted a Moroccan journalist, Nassim El Kerf as prefering the kingdom to host the opening match as it guarantees the featuring of Morocco instead of the final match in which the host country may not feature.
France are the last hosts to feature in a World Cup final in which they beat Brazil 3-0 in 1998. It is therefore impossible to know ahead of time if a host country will get to the final.
Exactly four months after they were bumped and relegated to the third-place match of the Africa Cup of Nations by the Super Eagles, South Africa’s Bafana Bafana are in jitters as they will come up against the three-time African champions again, in a crucial 2026 World Cup qualifying match in Uyo.
Only three days ago, the Super Falcons pushed the Banyana Banyana, reigning African champions, off the bus to this year’s Women’s Olympic Football Tournament, instead grabbing the ticket to make sure of a first appearance at the glamour tournament for the first time in 16 years.
The assured manner of Nigeria’s victories in the two fixtures have left the hierarchy of South African football flummoxed, and there is no adequate time to recover or rejig strategies before the Bafana Bafana come up against the Super Eagles in a Day 3 encounter of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying series at the Godswill Akpabio Stadium, Uyo on Friday, 7th June.
With two points from their previous two matches, but aware of the hold they have over the Bafana Bafana, the African vice champions are confident of the three points on the day, which could see them fly to the top of the pool.
It was on 7th February at the Stade de la Paix, Bouake that the Super Eagles kicked Bafana to the third-place match of the 34th Africa Cup of Nations. Despite achieving parity late in the game, the Bafana were cut to size during the penalty shootout with Nigeria’s South Africa-based goalkeeper Stanley Nwabali saving two of the kicks by the Bafana.
South Africans’ boasts of bouncing the Super Falcons in the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament fixture in revenge, ended belly-up with the Banyana failing to score a goal in 180 minutes of action, with the two teams separated by Rasheedat Ajibade’s goal from the penalty spot in Abuja on Friday, 5th April.
Despite being a point ahead of the Super Eagles in their World Cup qualifying group, the Bafana will fall behind once they submit to the superior strength, skill and savvy of the Super Eagles on another Friday in June.
It can be recalled that when the two teams also met at the Africa Cup of Nations in 2019, at the quarter-final stage, Nigeria triumphed 2-1 in Cairo.
Players of the Super Eagles are already getting in the mood to deliver the big punches to Bafana in Uyo in a few weeks’ time. Only on Thursday night, top striker Victor Boniface returned from the injury that kept him out of the AFCON, by coming off the bench to score in Bayer Leverkusen’s Europa League quarter-final duel with West Ham of England.
African Player of the Year Victor Osimhen has also been unable to stop scoring for his Italian Serie A side, SC Napoli.
Goalkeeper Nwabali remains in awesome shape, and midfielder Alex Iwobi and Ademola Lookman shone brightly in the defeat of Ghana in a friendly in Morocco last month.
There is no end to aspirations. That is what Morocco is doing as they planned the world’s largest stadium as one of their package for the milestone 2030 World Cup which marks the 100th year of the tournament.
A British firm, Populous has reportedly won the bid for the design of the what is called Morocco’s Grand Casablanca Stadium. It is being designed to hold 115,000 spectators in its bowel.
According to Populous in its website, the stadium derives its identity from the culture of the “season” in Morocco, as its structure is located under a large tent roof that appears as an exciting intervention in the forest landscape, noting that the stadium site extends over an area of 100 hectares in the city of Mansouria in the province of Benslimane (38 km north of Casablanca).
The British company explained that the stadium will be compatible with the FIFA standard. The company’s president, Francois Clément, said that the expected pace of construction “indicates the commitment of all parties concerned to deliver this project on time and within budget, and will constitute a rich asset for the Kingdom of Morocco, as well as raise it to the highest global platform for the development of sports infrastructure.”
The proposed stadium will compete with the Santiago Bernabeu and Camp Nou stadiums in Spain. Morocco is co-hosting the World Cup with Spain and Portugal Preparatory work has already begun to build the stadium on a 100-hectare site after funding for the project was approved last October.
According to the Morocco World News website, the budget for the new stadium project amounts to 5 billion Moroccan dirhams (460 million euros).
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