--- title: Here’s What Will Happen to Qatar’s World Cup Stadiums Now description: Qatar spent billions to host the most extravagant World Cup ever. How can it make sure that its stadiums don't turn into white elephants? canonical: https://time.com/6242292/what-happens-to-qatar-world-cup-stadiums/ author: Aryn Baker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-12-20T14:26:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:51:29.284Z article:section: Climate og:title: Here’s What Will Happen to Qatar’s Billion Dollar Stadiums Now That the World Cup Is Over og:description: Qatar hosted the most extravagant World Cup ever. How can it ensure its stadiums don't turn into white elephants? og:url: https://time.com/6242292/what-happens-to-qatar-world-cup-stadiums/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt45c58a026700345c/698a38fd47ca38472e3ba59e/qatar-world-cup-stadium-containers-reuse.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: General Views Of FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Venues og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here’s What Will Happen to Qatar’s Billion Dollar Stadiums Now That the World Cup Is Over twitter:description: Qatar hosted the most extravagant World Cup ever. How can it ensure its stadiums don't turn into white elephants? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt45c58a026700345c/698a38fd47ca38472e3ba59e/qatar-world-cup-stadium-containers-reuse.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here’s What Will Happen to Qatar’s Billion Dollar Stadiums Now That the World Cup Is Over > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Future Proof: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Future Proof is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Making sense of the climate and energy economy. Future Proof examines the forces transforming energy and climate, and what those changes mean for business, technology, policy and the global economy. 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Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Too Hot To Work; Qatar's World Cup Building Boom [Watch (HLS stream): Too Hot To Work; Qatar's World Cup Building Boom](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/CF4oAg12.m3u8) (19:32)  _Published 2022-11-14. Time reporters traveled the route that nearly half a million Nepali migrant laborers have taken over the past decade to middle east countries like Qatar, where they have helped build the stadiums, hotels, transport systems and entertainment venues that will host fans and players for the upcoming men’s World Cup soccer championship that starts November 20._ by [Aryn Baker](https://time.com/author/aryn-baker/) ## Aryn Baker Dec 20, 2022 2:26 PM UTC  An exterior detail general view taken on March 23, 2022 in Doha, Qatar, of shipping containers at the Stadium 974 a host venue for the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup. It is the first built in World Cup history that was meant to be torn down, making it the first ever temporary world cup stadium. An exterior detail general view taken on March 23, 2022 in Doha, Qatar, of shipping containers at the Stadium 974 a host venue for the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup. It is the first built in World Cup history that was meant to be torn down, making it the first ever temporary world cup stadium. Photo by Matthew Ashton—AMA/Getty Images by [Aryn Baker](https://time.com/author/aryn-baker/) ## Aryn Baker Dec 20, 2022 2:26 PM UTC The men’s soccer world championship ended in Qatar on Dec. 18 with one of the[ most thrilling](https://time.com/6242090/argentina-wins-world-cup-messi-france/) finals in the league’s 92-year history. It was a night of heart-stopping drama that went into overtime, and then some, ultimately ending with the coronation of Argentina as world champions. For Qatar, a gas-rich gulf nation with big ambitions and little in the way of a soccer tradition, it was a star-studded coming out party, marking its entry on the world stage by showing off its political and sporting event prowess. Qatar spent some $220 billion over 12 years getting ready to host the championships, shelling out[ $6.5 billion](https://news.sky.com/story/qatar-2022-what-has-been-built-for-the-2022-world-cup-what-it-has-cost-in-lives-and-how-much-was-spent-on-construction-12496471) to build seven of the most[ technologically advanced](https://time.com/6236839/qatar-world-cup-outdoor-air-conditioning-environment/) stadiums in the world, and to renovate another. An untold number of migrant laborers imported to do the work[ died in the process.](https://time.com/6227277/qatar-extreme-heat-world-cup-2022/) But as the athletes pack up their trophies and the last of the fans trickle home, what happens to the stadiums now that the party is over? Giant sporting events are often memorialized by the white elephants they leave behind, massive stadiums that cost hundreds of millions in construction, require millions more in annual maintenance, and are rarely—if ever—used again to their full capacity. Cape Town’s 2010 World Cup stadium has become a cherished local landmark, but the occasional concert and $4-a-person tours are not enough to fund its constant repairs. Eight of the 12 stadiums built for Russia’s 2018 World Cup, spread across a country with a population of 143 million spanning 11 time zones, are faring a bit better by hosting local soccer teams and sporting events, but none of them are likely to recoup the cost of investment. The smallest country to host the World Cup since Switzerland in 1954, Qatar now has a surplus of very expensive stadiums on its hands. The country’s compact size—the farthest distance between two stadiums is 34 miles (55 km)—was a boon for super fans eager to pack more than one game in a day, but now that the fans have all gone, it seems like overkill. The total seating capacity comes to 426,031, nearly 100,000 seats more than the entire native population of Qatar. Even with the country’s 2-million migrant labor workforce factored in, there are enough seats for one out of every seven residents. **Read More:**[ _Thousands of Migrant Workers Died in Qatar’s Extreme Heat. The World Cup Forced a Reckoning_](https://time.com/6227277/qatar-extreme-heat-world-cup-2022/) Nonetheless, Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, the government body in charge of organizing the World Cup, has pledged that its stadiums will not meet the same fate as those of previous tournaments, promising to implement “innovative legacy plans to ensure our tournament doesn’t leave any ‘white elephants,’” according to a[ statement](https://www.qatar2022.qa/sites/default/files/2022-08/FIFA-World-Cup-Qatar-2022%E2%84%A2-Sustainable-Stadiums-EN.pdf) by the Supreme Committee’s Secretary General Hassan Al Thawadi. Some of the stadiums will be dismantled and recycled. Others will be downsized, and some transformed into residential and shopping destinations. But before Qatar brings out the sledgehammers, it has another party coming up: the[ 2023 Asian Football Cup](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/sport/qatar-stage-asian-cup-most-likely-early-2024-3011116?cid=cna%5Fflip%5F070214), which will likely be held in early 2024 to spare fans and players the scalding heat of a Qatari summer. China was to be the original host, but it relinquished the rights earlier this year in order to pursue its zero-Covid policy. Qatar will also host the 2030 Asian Games, and is bidding for the 2036 Olympic Games, which will be awarded in 2025\. If successful, the Olympic bid could see some of the stadiums remodeled to suit different sports’ demands. One stadium, at least, won’t make it that far. Ras Abu Aboud’s[ Stadium 974](https://www.qatar2022.qa/en/tournament/stadiums/stadium-974), which is made up of 974 recycled shipping containers (it’s not a random number—that’s Qatar’s international dialing code), will be completely dismantled and shipped to a still-yet-to-be-decided-upon country in need of a second-hand sports stadium. The world’s first fully demountable covered football stadium, 974 could provide a template for low-impact sports arenas, doing away with white-elephant syndrome entirely. The surrounding area will be converted into a waterfront business district. The rest of the stadiums will have their capacities reduced by up to a half. Those excess seats, some 170,000 in total, will be donated to underdeveloped countries in need of sporting infrastructure, according to a[ statement](https://apnews.com/article/soccer-sports-health-africa-business-5edd6941bc827426ae0edf16ad7767ba) by Ali Dosari, the Supreme Committee’s director of installations, “allow\[ing\] the culture of soccer to be promoted and to a greater extent the love of sport throughout the world.” The organizers are also hoping that the World Cup will spark a bit more soccer culture in Qatar as well. Qatar owns the[ Paris Saint-Germain soccer club](https://en.psg.fr/), where the final’s rivals,[ Lionel Messi](https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/19/business/adidas-leo-messi-jerseys/index.html) and[ Kilian Mbappé](https://time.com/magazine/europe/5421652/october-22nd-2018-vol-192-no-16-europe-middle-east-and-africa/), play when they aren’t on their national teams, but enthusiasm for the domestic Qatar Stars league is less pronounced,[ drawing](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10892267/New-fears-environmental-cost-FIFA-World-Cup-Qatar-2022-despite-stadiums-34-miles.html) crowds that rarely exceed 1,500\. Nonetheless, local football clubs Al Rayyan and Al Wakrah will move into the[ Ahmad Bin Ali stadium](https://www.qatar2022.qa/en/tournament/stadiums/ahmad-bin-ali-stadium), where the USA faced off against Wales on Nov. 21, and the Zaha Hadid-designed[ Al Janoub Stadium](https://www.qatar2022.qa/en/tournament/stadiums/al-janoub-stadium), respectively. Not surprisingly, the[ Education City stadium](https://www.qatar2022.qa/en/tournament/stadiums/education-city-stadium), which is where most of Qatar’s universities and research facilities are located, will serve students and faculty from nine different universities and 11 schools. The top tier of the tent-like[ Al Bayat stadium](https://www.qatar2022.qa/en/tournament/stadiums/al-bayt-stadium), which hosted the opening match on Nov. 20 as well as the U.S.-England game on Nov. 25, will be removed and converted into a five-star hotel and shopping center. A sports medicine hospital is planned for the pitch-side lower levels as well.[ Al Thumama stadium](https://www.qatar2022.qa/en/tournament/stadiums/al-thumama-stadium) will get a similar treatment—refurbished with a sports clinic and hotel—while continuing to host as-of-yet-still-unspecified sporting events. [Lusail City’s](https://www.qatar2022.qa/en/tournament/stadiums/lusail-stadium) Fabergé egg of a stadium will be completely transformed into a community hub and residential area, home to shops, schools, cafes, and medical clinics. The upper tier, with views over the spires and construction cranes of Qatar’s nascent architectural wonderland, will be turned into outdoor terraces for the venue’s new residents. [Khalifa International stadium](https://www.qatar2022.qa/en/tournament/stadiums/khalifa-international-stadium), which was built by Qatar’s former Emir, Sheikh Khalifa ibn Hamad Al Thani in 1976 as an independence gift for his people, is the only stadium that will be left as is, ready to host matches and big tournaments as Qatar doubles down on its ambition to become an international sporting destination. If it does, that $6.5 billion stadium spending spree would have been well spent. If not, well, Qatar will join several other well-intentioned members of the International White Elephant Club. ## Transcript The winner to organize the 22. FIFA World Cup Qatar. The hosting an event of this size requires a lot of separate new stadiums, state-of-the-art training facilities and a lot more kind of exceed 50 degrees with humidity. The 2022 World Cup kicks off in November 5 months later than usual. Spare players and fans the worst of the gulf scorching summer heat. Qatar has been 10 years and two hundred billion dollars preparing for these games a building boom. And one of the world's hottest places and it relied on a global supply chain of Migrant workers from the Philippines Bangladesh, India and Nepal. Desperate enough to work in any conditions. Here or Surrender, no. More Chaplet of Divine Mercy. honey, because some of us, I want someone by Cher. McDonald's. I know I need a happy like when I got it. Hey buddy, love you. Why do people yawn? Montauk. What time, Alabama? Comerica Theatre. Play Yoshi like Morgan. This one's underground, five levels. What does it feel like to see these photos? I would like to say, happy happy happy. Like all workers headed for the gulf surrender tamang, passed a health screening before he left Nepal. He was hired as a construction worker on a luxury complex in downtown Doha. It was one of many such projects that sprang up in the rush to prepare for the 2022 games in the equivalent to $400 a month and spent nearly all of it home. But I can see why you're proud. It's an amazing structure. Add me to take my boo by chambliss South possible. Negative. AutoZone. When was pilate the boys? Have we had the tiniest. Pakistani video Gana. 1911 Livonia. Ave And Qatar Sorento suffered headaches and dizzy spells, clear signs of heat stress. When his job site posters emphasized, the need to stay hydrated but he had to pay for his own water. And some days when he was working high up on scaffolding, he would avoid drinking so we would have to make trips up and down to the bathroom. When he got too sick to work, his employer sent him home. By the time he arrived in Kathmandu, both his kidneys have stopped functioning the result of heat exposure and chronic dehydration. According to his doctor, Now, 31, he will likely be on dialysis for the rest of his life. The cheap aerial system. Holy year are also before they endured to the services and still we find lots of patients returning with kidney failure to our country. Presently around. 600% are on dialysis at Kidney Center in different branches of Nepal. 10% of the patients who are on dialysis Adult Center, call return The climate is getting hotter and this feeling of kidney failure, becoming more intense is ready to take care of the building. That is his patience. Are golf will remain the same attitude, no responsibility. Aren't they were intense? Something has to be done. Public Health. Experts, warn that chronic kidney disease could become a major health epidemic for outdoor workers as a planet continues to warm and migrant workers are especially vulnerable. Heat is killing workers, but officials in Qatar, rarely acknowledged its role death, certificates record an unusually high rate of what is simply called. Cardiac Arrest among those young. Seemingly healthy men have left home in search of work. So we saw a statistic from 2012 to 2020. There is 571, Nepali workers who died in Qatar, writing caracara, Stoneleigh will not Define. Any other languages are what may be the cause of death, the death of death of a particular person. There should be some antecedent and the contributors that was not mentioned in the middle of the death certificate. Our body. Can I claim it dies? If the temperature is more than 40 degrees, Centigrade the person will have some sort of heat-related complication. Flights from Kathmandu to Doha have increased substantially over the last decade, most months have about 150 flights on this route. In the years since to render left. Qatar conditions have actually improved from any laborers, we asked a construction company that he worked for about on-site heat labor protections, but they did not reply. So the Show the World Cup has accelerated, the International Labour Organization, along with heat scientists were divided to Qatar to study the impact of heat and humidity on worker Health. The result was legislation that increase the window of summer days and which work hours are restricted. It also expanded the midday summer work fan by 2 hours. Another Innovation is the use of a relatively new measurement that combined standard temperature and humidity to determine what is called a wet bulb Globe. Temperature Index, this measurement is essential to protecting outdoor workers because humidity impact the body's ability to sweat and the school down. when on the wet-bulb temperature index these conditions which is 32.1 and the third key measure from this legislation is that all out of workers, must undertake an annual health screening Qatar has eight stadiums ready for the soccer matches spread out across Doha. We toured Lucedale, the largest of them, which will host the final game of the 2022 World Cup. Although much criticism has been aimed at Qatar because of World Cup construction. The workers building the football stadiums. I've actually had some of the safest construction jobs in the last decade here and the new regulations have them prove them even more You can see. Today, this is a complete the stadium with air conditioning and it's fine when you're building. It is not, it feels almost as hot inside. This is outside every year. There are Lessons Learned every year, the science behind it, progresses and the authorities. Responsible for defining, those timings begin to understand the effect of heat on the workforce and on anybody being outdoors, enough time and adjust accordingly rights organization. Stay the thousands of Migrant workers have died since. Qatar was awarded the rights to host the World Cup. However, very few are tied to the stadiums in part. This is because the construction has been managed by the government, which is in, for stringent worker protection regulations, including for the private subcontractors working here. Contractors try to play dumb every Samoan. So their arms up every summer and say, oh, it's summer working hours again and we have to explain that. Yes, it is and you're a professional licenses. If I contract in the state of Qatar and those of the ministry of Labour, Ministry of Labour reported nearly 400, violations of the new heat protection policy for outdoor workers, reports from local Clinic show that emissions for heat stress have actually dropped by more than half from last summer. Indicating that the new rules may be working. How far is the most advanced in terms of legislation when it comes to keep heat regulations much easier to slow things down or even something completely? When we see things getting out of hand. It's much easier to do that now. And vile things in before, people are pushed beyond the system is. It's a very tough battle against private contractors there against the clock. They've been paid money to finish, they have liabilities on professional Indemnity. I need to finish the work and sometimes they do it. Regardless of course we needed government permits to visit all construction sites including this privately-run work site near the sale. Officials from the ministry of Labour. We're there and workers spoked with only in the presence of their supervisors. So how have you been told? The Kinks as workers here and Doha. What would you tell if you had a cousin coming from the Paul to work in Doha, what would you tell him to prepare for the Heat? Marinara by, I went to school with baking soda, take a lot of money. Is it easy to follow these rules? Your advice? Is it easy? The games will go on, but they leave behind questions about just how much the world's migrant labor force should be asked to sacrifice as wealthy Nations pursue Perpetual growth in a warming world. the World Cup is not the Finishing Line This between everybody recognizes that this is a longer-term and ever and it will take time to build The Government of Nepal is conflicted when it comes to demanding better conditions from the wealthy Nations, that helped deliver nearly a third of Nepal's GDP each year. Ramen Shop, Kota is a Nepali journalist who has been investigating labor conditions for Nepal's overseas, migrant workers. So, I mainly writing about the migrations and the displacement, you know, you make people away and 2, mg in teaspoons to go by writing this issue. yo, someone we spoke with the group of men who are where the difficult working conditions in the Gulf, but most still plan to go, Malaysia. How do you spell 7 + 51? 108. back in Kathmandu Surendra, who once dreamed of watching the world cup from a stadium in Qatar is instead just trying to stay healthy China Wok, Let me guess someone else. I will keep and anyone see a human Ma? But I'm kidney disease. How much they can't? You guys are going to Downey Park Produce hours in Longview. Lottery online. I had a big sign. Are you dumb? The mother garbage anniversary. 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