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Monday, 5 December 2022

Bon voyage to the first temporary World Cup stadium

The World Cup’s first temporary stadium has served its purpose: Built from 974 piled-up shipping containers, Qatar’s Stadium 974 will see its seventh and final match tonight before it is dismantled, The Financial Times reports. Built in response to concerns that Qatar was spending bns of USDs on stadiums that would be useless after the event, the plan is to take Stadium 974 apart, load it onto a ship, and rebuild it elsewhere. It was originally meant to go to an African country, but the FT is reporting that it may be sent to Uruguay — where it could make another World Cup appearance, since Uruguay is likely to be part of a South American bid to host the 2030 tournament.

Fun fact: The dialing code for Qatari phone numbers is also 974. Thank us when this comes up in World Cup trivia.

More Qatari World Cup stadiums are getting recycled: Al Janoub Stadium will be given to a local football team, while half of its seats will be “donated to football development projects overseas.” Qatar has committed to give away about 170k seats in all after the tournament. Another stadium, Al Bayt, is set to be turned into a luxury hotel, while Lusail, the biggest of the eight venues and the one that will host the World Cup final, will be transformed into a "community hub."

Elsewhere in World Cup news, some fans are feeling the pinch from FX fluctuations in Qatar: Some football fans are lamenting the price tag of attending the world cup in Qatar this year, as the QAR — which is pegged to the USD — soars, while other currencies continue to sink, Bloomberg reports. The cost of a trip to Qatar has ballooned in recent months for fans from countries including Japan, the UK, and South Korea on the back of the rallying greenback. The QAR has strengthened almost 10% against the GBP, some 9% against the KRW, and nearly 17% against the JPY, Bloomberg writes. Fans expressed their shock at high prices for everything from water to accommodation at the tournament.

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