Estimated World Cup outlay by the time Qatar has finished: £5.3bn — the equivalent of a small European country's entire GDP. There are unlikely to be any of the usual World Cup scare stories about stadiums, roads and infrastructure not being finished on time ahead of the 2022 event. The view from steps leading up to the facility — designed by London architects firm Foster and Partners — is currently a desert building site. But a World Cup is about more than leaving your cabin for a football equivalent of speed-dating. The availability of alcohol — the commodity which has oiled the wheels of World Cup finals from time immemorial — remains another uncertainty.

Source: Metro December 21, 2019 22:32 UTC