TEHRAN - Following an extensive redevelopment, Khalifa International Stadium was the first stadium amongst the eight venues that was inaugurated on 19th May 2017.

Qatar football authorities inaugurated Al Janoub Stadium on 16th May 2019 when they hosted this year’s Amir Cup final at their first stadium built from scratch.

The stadium features a dhow boat design as a tribute to the city's seafaring past. Interestingly, the installation of the pitch at Al Janoub Stadium set a world record time of just nine hours and fifteen minutes.

Six other stadiums are currently under construction. Main works on all venues will be completed two years prior to the much-anticipated kick off date of 21st November 2022.

The signs of progress in Qatar are impossible to miss. Four years ahead of hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Qatar wants the world to know they are growing and evolving.

More than Eight and half years after FIFA stunned the Football world by promising to bring the World Cup to the Middle East for the first time, what once seemed an impossible far-fetched dream, is slowly, but surely becoming a decidedly tangible reality.

Hosting the tournament featuring the most popular sport on the planet is the largest and most audacious step in Qatar’s plans to put itself on the world stage.

The country also recently launched its first metro line, three and half years before the Persian Gulf nation is due to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The trains, which boast airplane-style seats, will run across the capital Doha, both over and underground.

Apart from impressive infrastructural improvements, the state of Qatar has introduced many legislations to improve not only the lives of their own citizens, men and women, but also the lives of the two million or so international work force from unskilled workers to professional individuals.

What Qatar has done throughout the past ten years, since the idea of hosting the World Cup was conceived, can be a proper model for countries that are considering developing sports and, in general, their economic, social and cultural infrastructures.

Even often-unfair criticism and a four-way blockade of the 11,581-square-metre peninsula has not deterred Qatar from surging ahead, if anything made them more determined to reach new heights.

By Farrokh Hessabi