The first football world cup to be held in an Arab state, which kicks off on November 20 has some interesting facts you must know before watching it live in one of the eight stadiums or just simply watching it at the comfort of your home. Follow for more soccer zone stories. Here, we will lay out all the facts and things that you must know.
You may visit us for best soccer team analysis and stories this world cup season here!
Qatar is the smallest nation to host the Quadrennial Football World Cup!
It is truly that Qatar World Cup is the first of many firsts, not only this Arab nation is set to make the first middle east country to host this prestigious event, the ‘Rose of the Desert’ is also the smallest nation to host the world cup with only 11,000 sq km, which smaller than the US State of Connecticut. Despite that small area, Qatar is still expected to host millions of visitors around the world, with a whooping record of 1.5 million. The Qatar government also implements visa-free entry from 80 countries.
Shortest World Cup ever!
Unlike the last two world cup in Brazil (2014), and Russia (2018) where the span of the competition lasted for a month, the Qatar World Cup will have the shortest dates ever, with only 28 days from November 20 and will conclude on December 18. This is also the first football World Cup that dates pushed back from November – December, during the winter season in the northern hemisphere and in the middle of football leagues calendar. The major reason is to avoid the health risk of playing in such extreme weather during summer as Qatar is densely sits in the middle of the desert.
The Most Expensive World Cup: new stadiums, railways, and a constructed city!
It is estimated that the Qatar government spends a whooping $220 billion according to the data from US sports finance consultancy Front Office Sports. The Lusail Iconic Stadium costs a total $767m to built, the Al Rayyan Education City Stadium estimated to cost $700m, Al Bayt Stadium (Al Khor) costs $874m, Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium costs $360m, the reconstruction of Khalifa Intl costs a $374m, while Al Janoub Stadium and Al Thumama costs $578m and $342.5m with a total of $10 billion cost of building and refurbishing the stadiums. These eight stadiums are located in five Qatari cities that will host 32 teams and 64 matches. The fascinating thing is that it is estimated that there’s 55 km distance between stadiums. Each stadium has 26x the number of doors compared to the White House and uses 84,000 tons of structural steel to build.
Jungkook of BTS, the first Korean to perform in the World Cup Opening ceremony!
Koreans and ARMY fans should be excited and feel ecstatic as Jeon Jungkook will be the first Korean idol to perform in the FIFA World Cup opening ceremony. This truly brought massive attention and viewership from the Korean audience as the member of the phenomenal boy group BTS frenzied the social media following the announcement. However, many artists also backed out in performing including Dua Lipa boldly rejected the offer and advocate people to value human rights and end the abuse and discrimination, Shakira also backed out due to personal reason.
Qatar’s excellent cultural representation!
The host nation really prepared themselves for almost a decade to pulled this tournament into prospect massive success despite of turmoil, issues that covers the event such as human rights violation like unequal treatment on LGBTQIA+ members, and maltreatment of thousands of migrant workers — the host still applied their culture into this world cup like their official mascot named ‘La’eeb’ which in Arabic means super-skilled player wearing a traditional Arab cloth, or the infamous emblem that depicts the eight stadiums and the infinity symbol which pertains the historical monument for Qatar, to the middle east region, and to the football world.
Exciting games and big wins as you visit 12BET where exclusive promotions await you.
Visit 12BET login and join us to claim exclusive benefits and more.
