Qatar 2022, the organisation bidding to bring the FIFA World Cup to the Middle East for the first time, unveiled the 12 stadiums it plans to use if awarded the right to stage the 2022 FIFA World Cup on Thursday.
The stadiums, costing around $4 billion, were unveiled to FIFA's Inspection Team as part of its three-day visit to Qatar, and include three existing venues which would be expanded and nine new, state-of-the-art stadiums with capacities of at least 43,000.
Former Dutch international Ronald de Boer seemed impressed. “The stadium looks amazing, the technology we are going to use is going to beneficial - not for the World Cup itself - but will be beneficial for every country surrounding us, or even from the East to the West", said de Boer.
Joachim Schares, the spatial and environmental planner for the bid, spoke of his desire to emphasise the countries cultural heritage. "Qatar is a small country and not known so well in the whole world. So, the idea of the bid was to show the world what Qatar has to offer in the field of sport - but also in the field of culture and education."
Chile Football Federation president and head of the FIFA delegation in Qatar, Harold Mayne-Nicholls, was on his final stop for the six-member team on a tour of nine countries bidding to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cups.
Chairman of the Qatar Bid, Mohamed Bin Hamad Al Thani, admitted that their bid was not perfect and that some issues still need to be addressed - but offered forth a clearly passionate viewpoint. "When we announced that we wanted to bid for the World Cup and that we happily took on the responsibility to represent the Middle East, is essentially we truly believe that now is the time and we know the challenges we have to face ands we have been honest about that since the very first beginning. We invite 12 years of preparation and we want to take that on and prove that the Middle East (can do it) just as Africa was successful."
All of Qatar's stadiums will have direct metro and road access and be accessible from central Doha within one hour, enabling fans to see more than one game a day and dramatically limit the amount of travel for players and fans across the tournament.
Former France star Zinedine Zidane made a surprise appearance - and said he supported the bid because it would be good for the Middle East.
The 2018 tournament is expected to be played in Europe, with England, Russia, Spain-Portugal and Belgium-Netherlands competing.
The United States is the favourite for 2022 and is competing with Australia, Japan, Qatar and South Korea. FIFA's 24-member executive committee will vote on December 2
