THE World Cup may just be reaching its business end, with eight countries remaining – but one of the stadiums is already being dismantled.
Crew got to work on taking apart the temporary Stadium 974 in the Ras Abu Aboud area of Doha.
The unique ground was primarily built using 974 repurposed shipping containers – 974 is the dialing code for Qatar.
Inside, it held around 40,000 seats – officially bumped up by 4,089 after the tournament kicked off.
But fans may get to take their seat in the ground again – on the other side of the world.
Opened on November 20, 2021, the stadium was used for just 13 matches.
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That included six at the Arab Cup and seven at the World Cup, the last of which was Brazil’s thumping 4-1 win over South Korea on Monday night.
Within hours of the full-time whistle, though, the trucks and forklifts were out in force to start the mammoth dissembling job.
However, this is not expected to be the end of the story for the Stadium 974.
Because as reported by the Financial Times, the plan is to transport the shipping containers – presumably by boat – 8,000 miles to Uruguay.
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The South American nation plan to rebuild the stadium back to its original structure and host World Cup matches there in 2030.
Uruguay are hoping the proposed initiative to reduce the wasted derelict venues will help sway the votes for the hosting rights for the tournament in eight years’ time – exactly 100 years since they staged the inaugural event.
Their bid will be a joint effort with Argentina, Chile and Paraguay.
But it faces competition from the European bid of Spain, Portugal and Ukraine.
A bid from Morocco and a cross-confederation campaign from Egypt, Greece and Saudi Arabia has also been proposed.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
