The Fédération Internationale de Football Association
(FIFA), the world governing body of soccer, selects the host country for the
World Cup, in which the selected country hosts soccer games in preselected
cities and stadiums. For the 2022 World Cup, there were five bids in the
finals: Australia, Japan, South Korea, Qatar and the United States. The
committee votes on who should have it until one country receives the majority
of the votes, with the lowest country being eliminated each round. One single
country failed to receive a majority of the votes until the final round of
voting. The last two countries standing for the right to host the most
spectacular tournament in all of sports were the United States and the small
country in the Persian Gulf, Qatar. The final votes came in and with 14 votes
to 8, Qatar was selected as the 2022 host of the FIFA World Cup.
Although there is controversy regarding to how Qatar won the
bid, whether it was through merit or alleged bribery, one must admire Qatar’s
innovation and creativity regarding their plans for their stadiums for the
event. If you haven’t seen the plans for this tournament yet, the pictures have
been released of all 12 venues that they plan to build/renovate for the games.
These are some spectacular stadium ideas. There is a lot of planning and organizing
that Qatar has to do in order to be ready for these games in the summer of
2022. One of the concerns is that Qatar is very hot in the summer. One suggestion
has been to move the games to the winter, which has not been done before. The
other idea that has been thrown out there has been the idea of a large scale
air conditioning system that will keep the players cool, despite a temperature
of around 100° outside during the summer. This is one of the innovative ideas,
but not the most spectacular.
Above: (Doha Port Stadium)
Above: (Aerial view of Doha Port Stadium)
Above: (Lusail Iconic Stadium)
