5 ms·

Specifically soccer-related infrastructure, i.e. stadiums. The United States could host four World Cups simultaneously without having to build any more stadiums

Specifically soccer-related infrastructure, i.e. stadiums. The United States could host four World Cups simultaneously without having to build any more stadiums. Qatar has to build almost everything from scratch.

hcho 11y ago
Lack of infrastructure is not the crazy bit. Everyone knows that they have the money to throw at the problem. The fact that all games of WC will be played in one city is the problem. All the fans in contact for a prolonged span...It won't end well.
- austenallred 11y ago
  > Everyone knows that they have the money to throw at the problem. They may have money to throw at the problem, but Nepalese migrants building the infrastructure to host the 2022 World Cup died at a rate of almost one per day. Look at the full report, it's astounding: * Evidence of forced labour on a huge World Cup infrastructure project. * Some Nepalese men have alleged that they have not been paid for months and have had their salaries retained to stop them running away. * Some workers on other sites say employers routinely confiscate passports and refuse to issue ID cards, in effect reducing them to the status of illegal aliens. * Some labourers say they have been denied access to free drinking water in the desert heat. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/revealed-qatars-world-cup-slaves http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/revealed-qatars...
  - hcho 11y ago
    Yes, Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals had similar experiences. As a matter of fact they have been experiencing this for decades in the region. Have the wrong passport and you are a slave.
  - mason240 11y ago
    It's been estimated that a worker will die for every minute of game time across the tournament. Every minute of play = one dead worker.
- jgreen10 11y ago
  National football fans are not like club football fans. There is very little hooliganism in international football, nor would anyone have any energy for it in the searing heat.
  - koyote 11y ago
    I would disagree, it might have been a while but there was quite a bit of hooliganism during the WC98 in France: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/16/sports/world-cup-98-fans-set-off-another-day-of-violence.html http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/16/sports/world-cup-98-fans-s...
    - curun1r 11y ago
      I took a train from Nice to Paris right after this happened and two English "fans" shared the compartment I was sitting in. It was one of the most frightening experiences I've ever had traveling. All they could talk about was recounting their "exploits" in the events described in your linked article. One even bragged that he "got a Tunisian so good he might not pull through." The lack of humanity they displayed was an eye opener for me and helped me come to the realization that Soccer/Football has become the proxy for war in Europe. While that is, all things considered, an excellent development (I'll take hooliganism over world wars), it's also scary that people seem to have a deep-seeded, tribal need to fight and, when we do, we seem to lose all compassion for the opposition. Events like the World Cup seem to play on this need rather than trying to quash it.
  - psykovsky 11y ago
    So little they even wrote a book about it. Violence and the Euro 2004, in Portuguese. http://ielt.fcsh.unl.pt/ielt/pt/acontecendo/no-passado/132 http://ielt.fcsh.unl.pt/ielt/pt/acontecendo/no-passado/132
lmm 11y ago
If they're willing and able to build it, on time for the cup, that doesn't seem to inherently present a problem (notwithstanding issues about labour conditions etc., I'm talking specifically just about the "no infrastructure" point).
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  They are willing to build it using essentially slave labor. They may be able to build it before all the workers die.
- beedogs 11y ago
  It's a total waste of resources, energy, money... they're single-use stadiums. Most will go derelict after the tournament ends.
motoboi 11y ago
You should remember that Brazil built (or rebuilt from scratch) all stadiums used on the world cup. Qatar would build them on less time and less money, I suppose.
- mbreese 11y ago
  Brazil also has an Olympics coming up and a healthy national soccer league. I'm fairly certain they will be able to reuse a lot of those stadiums, so the benefit of that construction will extend for quite a while longer.
  - maskd 11y ago
    That has not happened, though: http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/05/11/405955547/brazils-world-cup-legacy-includes-550m-stadium-turned-parking-lot http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/05/11/405955547/b... Besides the issues with building stadiums in states without a football tradition, Brazil is facing the problem that people just don't go to the stadium much. For example, the national league, which finished its third round last week, has had only 3 games with more than 20000 spectators so far. That was already a big problem before the World Cup, and only became bigger after it since the cost of maintaining the stadiums is much higher now, and so are ticket prices.
    - zimpenfish 11y ago
      > For example, the national league, which finished its third round last week, has had only 3 games with more than 20000 spectators so far. That's quite low - only the bottom two Premiership teams averaged less than that for 2014-15. But presumably it'll pick up over the season? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_home_attendances_in_non-European_club_football http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_home_attendances_in_non... implies there's at least 3 clubs averaging >20k a season recently.
akfanta 11y ago
> Specifically soccer-related infrastructure Do you have any sources for the claim? As far as I know, football is quite popular in middle east. Football clubs in that area have consistently been strong contenders in the AFC champions league. This means they have a healthy and competitive domestic league. Claiming they don't have soccer-related infrastructure is pretty ridiculous.
- riffraff 11y ago
  WC-level stadiums are not the same thing as normal stadiums, i.e. a stadium for 20k people is not ok. They are planning to build 9 and expand 3, and they are actually going to dismantle part of them after they are used. Wikipedia has some stuff[0][1]. [0] " Local organizers are planning to build 9 new stadiums and expand 3 existing stadiums for this event." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar#Football http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar#Football [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_2022_FIFA_World_Cup_bid#Proposed_stadiums http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_2022_FIFA_World_Cup_bid#P...
jetti 11y ago
I thought it just wasn't just stadiums, but stadiums that could provide enough cooling so that the game could actually be played during a Qatari summer.
- austenallred 11y ago
  They ended up moving the World Cup to winter, determining that it would simply be too hot. Of course, almost every major soccer league in the world runs during the winter with a summer break, so moving the month-long World Cup to would have thrown a wrench into the scheduling of every league and match in the top leagues. It would be an absolute nightmare. I have high hopes that the World Cup will be moved (it's been moved with as little as three years notice before), but if not it will be chaos.
  - jetti 11y ago
    The only league I know of that takes a winter break is the Russian Premier League. That being said, I've heard that it will take at least 2 months of time away from the normal schedule. There is the one month of the actual competition but then 1 month prior to get ready for the tournament.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- KeytarHero 11y ago
  Except they're holding it in the winter
  - addicted44 11y ago
    After lying that they would hold it in the summer by having air conditioned stadiums during their bid. None of the major professional leagues are happy about this. If the world cup remains in Qatar it's going to be a fiasco. http://www.businessinsider.com/qatar-world-cup-disaster-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/qatar-world-cup-disaster-2015...
  - 11y ago

hcho 11y ago

Lack of infrastructure is not the crazy bit. Everyone knows that they have the money to throw at the problem. The fact that all games of WC will be played in one city is the problem. All the fans in contact for a prolonged span...It won't end well.

austenallred 11y ago
> Everyone knows that they have the money to throw at the problem. They may have money to throw at the problem, but Nepalese migrants building the infrastructure to host the 2022 World Cup died at a rate of almost one per day. Look at the full report, it's astounding: * Evidence of forced labour on a huge World Cup infrastructure project. * Some Nepalese men have alleged that they have not been paid for months and have had their salaries retained to stop them running away. * Some workers on other sites say employers routinely confiscate passports and refuse to issue ID cards, in effect reducing them to the status of illegal aliens. * Some labourers say they have been denied access to free drinking water in the desert heat. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/revealed-qatars-world-cup-slaves http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/revealed-qatars...
- hcho 11y ago
  Yes, Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals had similar experiences. As a matter of fact they have been experiencing this for decades in the region. Have the wrong passport and you are a slave.
- mason240 11y ago
  It's been estimated that a worker will die for every minute of game time across the tournament. Every minute of play = one dead worker.
jgreen10 11y ago
National football fans are not like club football fans. There is very little hooliganism in international football, nor would anyone have any energy for it in the searing heat.
- koyote 11y ago
  I would disagree, it might have been a while but there was quite a bit of hooliganism during the WC98 in France: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/16/sports/world-cup-98-fans-set-off-another-day-of-violence.html http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/16/sports/world-cup-98-fans-s...
  - curun1r 11y ago
    I took a train from Nice to Paris right after this happened and two English "fans" shared the compartment I was sitting in. It was one of the most frightening experiences I've ever had traveling. All they could talk about was recounting their "exploits" in the events described in your linked article. One even bragged that he "got a Tunisian so good he might not pull through." The lack of humanity they displayed was an eye opener for me and helped me come to the realization that Soccer/Football has become the proxy for war in Europe. While that is, all things considered, an excellent development (I'll take hooliganism over world wars), it's also scary that people seem to have a deep-seeded, tribal need to fight and, when we do, we seem to lose all compassion for the opposition. Events like the World Cup seem to play on this need rather than trying to quash it.
- psykovsky 11y ago
  So little they even wrote a book about it. Violence and the Euro 2004, in Portuguese. http://ielt.fcsh.unl.pt/ielt/pt/acontecendo/no-passado/132 http://ielt.fcsh.unl.pt/ielt/pt/acontecendo/no-passado/132

lmm 11y ago

If they're willing and able to build it, on time for the cup, that doesn't seem to inherently present a problem (notwithstanding issues about labour conditions etc., I'm talking specifically just about the "no infrastructure" point).

jsprogrammer 11y ago
They are willing to build it using essentially slave labor. They may be able to build it before all the workers die.
beedogs 11y ago
It's a total waste of resources, energy, money... they're single-use stadiums. Most will go derelict after the tournament ends.

motoboi 11y ago

You should remember that Brazil built (or rebuilt from scratch) all stadiums used on the world cup. Qatar would build them on less time and less money, I suppose.

mbreese 11y ago
Brazil also has an Olympics coming up and a healthy national soccer league. I'm fairly certain they will be able to reuse a lot of those stadiums, so the benefit of that construction will extend for quite a while longer.
- maskd 11y ago
  That has not happened, though: http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/05/11/405955547/brazils-world-cup-legacy-includes-550m-stadium-turned-parking-lot http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/05/11/405955547/b... Besides the issues with building stadiums in states without a football tradition, Brazil is facing the problem that people just don't go to the stadium much. For example, the national league, which finished its third round last week, has had only 3 games with more than 20000 spectators so far. That was already a big problem before the World Cup, and only became bigger after it since the cost of maintaining the stadiums is much higher now, and so are ticket prices.
  - zimpenfish 11y ago
    > For example, the national league, which finished its third round last week, has had only 3 games with more than 20000 spectators so far. That's quite low - only the bottom two Premiership teams averaged less than that for 2014-15. But presumably it'll pick up over the season? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_home_attendances_in_non-European_club_football http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_home_attendances_in_non... implies there's at least 3 clubs averaging >20k a season recently.

akfanta 11y ago

> Specifically soccer-related infrastructure Do you have any sources for the claim? As far as I know, football is quite popular in middle east. Football clubs in that area have consistently been strong contenders in the AFC champions league. This means they have a healthy and competitive domestic league. Claiming they don't have soccer-related infrastructure is pretty ridiculous.

riffraff 11y ago
WC-level stadiums are not the same thing as normal stadiums, i.e. a stadium for 20k people is not ok. They are planning to build 9 and expand 3, and they are actually going to dismantle part of them after they are used. Wikipedia has some stuff[0][1]. [0] " Local organizers are planning to build 9 new stadiums and expand 3 existing stadiums for this event." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar#Football http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar#Football [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_2022_FIFA_World_Cup_bid#Proposed_stadiums http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_2022_FIFA_World_Cup_bid#P...

jetti 11y ago

I thought it just wasn't just stadiums, but stadiums that could provide enough cooling so that the game could actually be played during a Qatari summer.

austenallred 11y ago
They ended up moving the World Cup to winter, determining that it would simply be too hot. Of course, almost every major soccer league in the world runs during the winter with a summer break, so moving the month-long World Cup to would have thrown a wrench into the scheduling of every league and match in the top leagues. It would be an absolute nightmare. I have high hopes that the World Cup will be moved (it's been moved with as little as three years notice before), but if not it will be chaos.
- jetti 11y ago
  The only league I know of that takes a winter break is the Russian Premier League. That being said, I've heard that it will take at least 2 months of time away from the normal schedule. There is the one month of the actual competition but then 1 month prior to get ready for the tournament.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
KeytarHero 11y ago
Except they're holding it in the winter
- addicted44 11y ago
  After lying that they would hold it in the summer by having air conditioned stadiums during their bid. None of the major professional leagues are happy about this. If the world cup remains in Qatar it's going to be a fiasco. http://www.businessinsider.com/qatar-world-cup-disaster-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/qatar-world-cup-disaster-2015...
- 11y ago