Expensive pride: The heavy cost of hosting the World Cup

In just a fortnight, the most expensive World Cup in history will be rolling off in Qatar. The Arab nation, home to slightly less than 3m inhabitants, will become the 18th host of the finals since its maiden edition in Uruguay 1930.

Hosting the World Cup has proven to be more than just for economic benefits. It’s a show of political and economic might and the pride of a nation with almost negligible returns.

There’s a lot involved in the process of selection of the hosts given the high stakes at play. In some cases huge sums of money have allegedly changed hands through the backdoor, big stars picked to influence bids and so forth.

It is reported that Qatar has spent in excess of $220b (Shs836tr) to prepare for the month-long showpiece! For perspective, Uganda’s budget for the financial year 2022/23 is estimated at Shs45tr. South Africa, Brazil and Russia spent about $3.6b, $15b and $11.6b for the 2010, 2014 and 2018 finals.

Germany has bid to host eight times but only succeeded twice. England, with arguably some of the best facilities and best league in the world, last hosted in 1966 despite expressing interest four times for the 1990, 1998, 2006 and recently the 2018 edition.

African powerhouse Morocco, with the second-joint appearance at the showpiece for an African team, has tried five times without succeeding while South Africa only bid for the 2006 and 2010 but won the latter, thanks to a rotational policy set by Fifa that guarded the tournament for only Africa nations. 

Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria and Tunisia are the other five that wanted to host the 2010 finals.

Bidding process

The process to bid to host begins with Fifa officially opening the bids. Normally, and for preparation purposes, the process of picking the host has always been completed six years prior to the tournament.

After opening the bids, the interested countries form their bid committees and submit their completed expression of interest to Fifa who in return issue a registration form with the requirements for hosting the World Cup.

The member associations return the forms with the relevant supporting documents. Fifa then, distributes the bidding and hosting agreements for the nations to sign and submit together with their bid book, a detailed document. Thereafter, Fifa sends a delegation to inspect the requirements.

The process to choose the host for the Russia 2018 and the Qatar 2020 tournaments was conducted concurrently between January 2009 and December 2010 and was decided by the Fifa executive committee.

The 2026 process which the United bid - Canada, Mexico and the United States- won - was done between May 2017 and June 2018 but this time was decided by the congress with 203 out of 211 members voting. Uganda voted for Morocco but the United bid won by 134 votes to 65.

There are several requirements that demand a lot of investment especially setting new infrastructure.

They include upgrading and construction of stadiums, teams and referee facilities, accommodation for fans, transport, information, technology and telecommunications infrastructure, fan festival and event promotion and organising costs.

Fifa alone had planned to invest about $1.7b in the organisation of the tournament but the biggest cost lies with the host nations who inject relatively huge sums of taxpayers’ money to construct stadiums and infrastructure. 

Stadium Requirements

“Fifa would like to emphasize that the infrastructure and facilities in the host country must be of the highest quality in order to fulfill the requirements of the world’s most popular sporting event,” Fifa stressed to the interested bidders for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments.

First, the stadiums. Fifa requires at least a minimum capacity of 40, 000 for any stadium to host a world cup match of any magnitude.

The stadiums to host the opening and final match must carry a minimum of 80,000 fans and 60,000 for semifinals. Remaining group matches, round of 32 and 16 can do with 40,000.

For the 32 team tournament this year, Fifa required a minimum of 12 stadiums meeting the above terms. But because of Qatar’s compact nature, they were allowed to use only eight.

Of those, the only one that existed before the nation bidding was Khalifa International Stadium. The rest were built from scratch, costing the oil-rich nation about $10b (Shs377tr).

Besides, every stadium must have a standard training site and each team provided its own base camp with an exclusive training ground.

Out of the 64 training grounds, Qatar had to build 39 new ones and upgraded all the remaining to fit the requirements. A total of 14 stadiums and 150 training sites will be required from USA, Mexico and Canada in 2026.

Accommodation

On accommodation, each team has its own four or five-star hotel. The World Cup attracts millions of fans from across the globe. 

The Russia finals attracted over 3m fans while Qatar is projected to sell slightly less than that. For that, Fifa requires the host to provide not less than 60,000 rooms for the fans.

Qatar announced that there will be more than 84,000 with more than half of those constructed purposefully for the world cup. Qatar had committed to invest $17b (Shs65tr) in the project.

The number of fans travelling is more than what the stadiums can accommodate therefore, Fifa has organizes fan festival events in host cities with each host city allocating at least two sites with a capacity of 15,000 and 40,000 for the final match.

In Qatar, due to proximity there will be only one at the place at Al Bidda Park in the centre of Doha.

Transport and accommodation

Accommodation normally goes hand in hand with the transportation network. Due to the nature of a sudden surge in numbers, Fifa is very critical to the transport network.

The body requires at least an airport that can handle about 1,400 passengers per hour near the each stadium and a good rail and road network.

However, due to Qatar’s size, a total land area of 11,586 sq. meters-, fans and teams will not need to fly to matches.

The host stadiums are allocated within a radius of 30km from each other.

Actually, the teams may not need to change base as they progress in the tournament even if they shift stadiums.

Russia reportedly spent $3.4b in upgrading their transport networks ahead of the 2018 finals.

In addition to the above, the host nation is expected, by Fifa, to allow tax exemptions.

Expensive legacy?

Of the eight stadiums, four will be reconstructed into smaller stadiums of about 20,000 fans Stadium 974 will be dismantled completely while the Lusail Stadium will be turned into a social amenity facility. Up to 170,000 seats will be donated to less developed countries.

Countries that have hosted the World Cup -

Uruguay, Switzerland, Sweden, Chile, England, Argentina, Spain, USA, Japan/South Korea (jointly), South Africa and Russia have each hosted once. Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, and Mexico have hosted twice each.

Estimated cost of hosting world cup since 1990

S. Korea/Japan 2002 - $7b

Germany 2006 - $4.6b

S. Africa 2010 - $3.6 b

Brazil 2014 - $15b

Russia 2018 - $12b

Host city, stadium and their capacities

Lusail City – Lusail stadium (80,000)

Al Khor City - Al Bayt Stadium (60,000)

Doha City - Stadium 974 (40,000)

-          Al Thumama Stadium (40,000)

-          Education City Stadium (40,000)

-          Khalifa International Stadium(40,000)

Al-Wakrah City - Al Janoub Stadium (40,000)

Al-Rayyan City - Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium (40,000)