The world soon will shift its focus to Saudi Arabia since the country was declared to win the right to host the FIFA World Cup 2034. However, against all the excitement and thrill there are deep concerns over its capability to meet all infrastructure demands. One of the main fears is the delays in the construction of new, high-tech stadiums. With the remaining countdown to the tournament, one would wonder whether Saudi Arabia’s stadiums will be ready in time, considering the country is not ready yet.
Stadium Construction for FIFA World Cup
Hosting the FIFA World Cup is a humongous task for any nation. It needs big infrastructural changes; however, these needs vary widely. Currently, Saudi Arabia has only a few stadiums that come anywhere near meeting the requirements of FIFA for a World Cup. The stadiums, though not bad, do not have all the modern features, capacity, and designs needed for a world event.
Thus, Saudi Arabia has to build many new stadiums or renovate existing ones to match international standards. However, there are numerous issues related to these construction projects. To date, only two stadiums in Saudi Arabia have capacities of more than 40,000 spectators. These are the King Fahd Sports City Stadium with a capacity of 70,200 spectators and the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium with a capacity of 62,345 spectators. These few large-capacity venues make it hard to host significant international events.
Construction Challenges and Delays
Even though Saudi Arabia, with such many set goals from hosting the World Cup, involves the construction of several new stadiums in main cities like Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam; there is also an urgent matter of concern with time completion. Out of these concerns, one key problem is the size of the stadiums to be put up, so huge.
Large-scale construction projects in the region have suffered delays, and that includes stadiums. The Qatar World Cup 2022 suffered delays regarding the construction timeline as well as the quality control issue. All large infrastructure projects that Saudi Arabia has undertaken to date will not witness its Vision 2030 plan materialize in the proposed time frame of delivering several world-class stadiums by 2034.
Saudi Arabia must construct or expand at least 13 more stadiums with a capacity of more than 40,000 to host the expanded format of the World Cup, which will feature 48 teams.
Lack of Experience with Major Events
Saudi Arabia lacks experience in hosting major international sporting events such as the Asian Games and Formula E races, comparing them to other countries that have hosted the FIFA World Cups for decades. For example, Brazil, Germany, and Russia had experience of having hosted the World Cup earlier in the past, and hence infrastructure for such a mega event already existed. In contrast, management in Saudi Arabia failed to show potential in handling this massive-scale tournament.
The country has a long history of hosting big-profile sports events, especially the Supercoppa Italiana and other international football games, with no direct comparisons in terms of size and scale when it comes to hosting a FIFA World Cup. That calls for holding World Cups within world-class stadiums with efficient networks for transportation to cater to hundreds of thousands of spectators then to be followed by the logistical setups for millions.
Financial/Sources: Source of Finance and Budget Limitations
The amount of money Saudi Arabia is spending on the infrastructural development of the World Cup has been tremendous; building, however, multiple world-class stadiums may just be too costly for its wallet. Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure budget is already stretched to its limits with ambitious programs such as Vision 2030, which the country is running on economic diversification through investing in sectors such as technology, tourism, and renewable energy.
The stadiums for the World Cup could likely convince a large portion of that amount, leaving relatively small amounts for otherwise minuscule portions of the tournament to be built-in this case, transportation structures and security forces to manage people.
So when finance and other issues in its construction are given a face or turn out a little wrong or slow, the domino fall effect is highly possible to mar the overall event. The FIFA World Cup is very expensive, and countries usually get financially strained in trying to meet all the requirements.
Moreover, the money that will be spent to build these stadiums could be better spent in more critical areas, as Saudi Arabia has already begun paying attention to human rights issues and investing in the country’s social and economic development. In many ways, it is questionable whether spending billions of dollars on sports infrastructure for just one event should be done when there are a lot of things that need attention.
Conclusion
The guts Saudi Arabia has taken towards hosting the FIFA World Cup 2034 brings it to the forefront on the country’s road to higher world status. Lack of preparedness is a giant obstacle in its stadiums. It’s a very daunting task to construct many new world-class stadiums on time.
Delayed construction, financial constraints, environmental issues, and the unavailability of hosting experience for mega events all mean that Saudi Arabia is not entirely ready to host the World Cup in 2034. Unless these problems are tackled as soon as possible, the dream of the country to host one of the biggest sporting events in the world will face tremendous setbacks.
