International Intelligence: World Cup Fever

With doubts cast over the legitimacy of the World Cup bidding process consultants working in Qatar, host of the 2022 event, are considering the implications for the project market.

Bernadette Ballantyne
18 June 2014

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As the 2014 World Cup in Brazil continues, so does the work by the FIFA ethics committee which is investigating the bidding process for the World Cup awards made for 2018 to Russia and 2022 to Qatar, amid allegations of corruption.

Investigatory Chamber chairman and former US prosecutor Michael Garcia completed his interviews with all participating bid teams and officials on 9 June and the final report will go to FIFA six weeks later.

“A lot of growth is forecast, a lot of firms have taken new office space and invested in Qatar, and the big issue would be that growth plans would be affected if Qatar were to lose the World Cup"

His role is to identify any violations of the FIFA code of ethics by football officials and given the high profile allegations levelled at Qatar by The Sunday Times over the past few weeks, his report is timely.

Qatar firmly denies any wrongdoing. “These allegations are baseless and riddled with innuendo designed to tarnish the reputation of Qatar’s 2022 Bid Committee,” said the committee in a statement released this week.

And further demonstrating its commitment to the 2022 event it this week unveiled the latest stadium design, for the 45,000 seat Al Khor stadium in Qatar (pictured).

However specific World Cup related infrastructure such as the nine new planned stadia and three upgrades, are a very small proportion of the construction market. From a comprehensive city wide metro system, to the New Doha Port, a new international airport, a heavy rail system, expanded motorway and rural roads networks and expansion of power and water provision, the country has a project market estimated by Middle East Economic Digest to be worth $267bn.

Although some of this infrastructure will be needed to support the 2022 World Cup, particularly the road and rail links, much of it was planned before the bidding for the event began and is considered an important part of meeting strategic objectives of the Qatar National Vision 2030. But what the successful award of the 2022 World Cup did was provide a deadline for completion and act as a catalyst for projects to get started.

“A lot of the directly World Cup related infrastructure such as stadiums and hotels has not started yet and what is happening here would be happening whether there is a world cup or not"

Over the past two years consultants that had seen their turnover fall after Dubai’s downturn have successfully turned their attention to Doha where like the boom days of 2006 and 2007 the challenge is now resourcing the investment plans. But should the FIFA investigation prove any wrongdoing and lead to the tournament being rebid firms are expecting a hiatus.

“A lot of growth is forecast, a lot of firms have taken new office space and invested in Qatar, and the big issue would be that growth plans would be affected if Qatar were to lose the World Cup and there was a period of investigation and introspection,” says the director of one major consultancy. “If there is an enquiry, expenditure tends to slow down while these things are looked into.”

But for now consultants tell Infrastructure Intelligence that it is “business as usual” in Qatar which has been one of the most active construction markets in the world in the past 18 months.

“A lot of the directly World Cup related infrastructure such as stadiums and hotels has not started yet and what is happening here would be happening whether there is a world cup or not,” says the director.