Stack those up, it would actually look like the town in the film Ready Player One
Posted on 11/09/2022 1:32:06 PM PST by nickcarraway
Photos of the $203 a night accommodation in ‘fan villages’ is... yeah.
If you’ve booked your flight to Qatar for the World Cup and already have your reservation set to stay in a “fan village,” well, I’m sorry. Photos have emerged of the temporary residency set up for 60,000 soccer fans, and calling them a college dorm room would be generous — let alone boarding that costs $203 a night.
A total of 30,000 rooms have been erected in the desert for the influx of fans, and while appearances may be deceiving, these look a whole lot like shipping containers.
It’s no so much that shipping containers are being used for the rooms, as much as the potential problems from all this. The point isn’t to get all “privileged westerner” about accommodation overseas, but rather what cramped rooms, paired with uninsulated steel or wooden structures means when you’re hosting an event in the desert.
Interior photos of the rooms shows no evidence of cooling, outside of a simple blind over the room’s lone window.
With competition set to start later this month, Accuweather is showing temperatures this month ranging from highs of 93, to lows of 68 at night. It remains to be seen how well the fan dwellings are at dissipating heat. The idea of people using shipping containers as housing isn’t new, but they do require a lot more forethought when it comes to heating and cooling that traditional structures. It’s unclear at this time whether the organizing committee has taken into account these issues — as well as the liklihood of multiple adults sharing such a cramped space.
Rooms will have a small bathroom, as well as a miniature fridge and ... that’s it. The majority of the time fans are expected to be out and about, either watching games they don’t have tickets for at outdoor viewing areas with beanbag seating, or in one of the few designated zones where visitors can consume alcohol, despite Qatar’s strict Sharia law.
Look, in the end the concept isn’t terrible — but the execution is where this could all become a disaster. Repurposing shipping containers as temporary housing is vastly preferable than seeing huge villages rot and fall into disrepair following an event, but the nature of holding the World Cup in a location as hot as Qatar could really turn this into a huge health concern. Fans traveling from cool fall climates won’t have adequate time to acclimatize to the heat of Qatar, and these small rooms don’t seem to offer much relief.
Even the communal fan dining halls don’t really seem equipped to handle the crowds, with photos showing a few portable air conditioners in a tent set to seat hundreds.
This has been one of the most ill-advised, transparently corrupt, and reprehensibly managed events in the history of world sports. So much damage as already been done, but at this point all we can do is cross our fingers and hope there aren’t any major incidents that affect fans hoping to simply attend the World Cup.
Are you sure that’s not Eritrea instead?
Once again, do not take calls from “Turks” while in Qatar.
Stack those up, it would actually look like the town in the film Ready Player One
transparently corrupt
Yes FIFA is transparent as always.
We're told that soccer is the most popular sport in the world. Yet of the 96% of the population outside the U.S., many countries with really dense populations, they can fill only one 100K stadium for soccer? Meanwhile in the U.S., our 4% of the population fills multiple 100K+ stadiums for college football on the same day.
And I'm supposed to believe their serious about soccer? LOL
The World Cup in Qatar is going to be a Cluster F*ck, you have rowdy fans from all over the world coming to a country that doesn’t allow rowdy fans.
Drunk and disorderly behavior, scantily clad women, potential fights among the fans, etc...all of it in a country that doesn’t kindly to any of that.
Didn’t Qatar know it’s like that before they bid?
I’m sure they did, but they want the worldwide legitimacy of hosting the biggest soccer event in the world.
The stories about the crap that is about to happen won’t be shown on TV, but the stories will come out after all the dust settles.
Middle East version of Fyre Festival, but without the influencers in string bikinis…lol.
Hong Kong has a new model of excellence to emulate.
Are they complaining?
London has six Premier League teams. Four of them have over stadiums of 60,000*+ seating capacity. There are many soccer stadiums with more than 80,000 seats.
Just a reminder FIFA picked this tiny place with zero infrastructure instead of the United States.
The US Army houses troops in shipping containers in Djbouti. From the photos I saw, they weren’t horrible.
Well, you educated. I finally found something that FIFA did that I approve of. Thanks, FIFA.
Make the fans live like savage nomads but require a cell phone app to control them...
You can’t make up this stuff!
Many of the more famous soccer stadiums ate right in the middle of urban areas. So yes you are not going to see 100K stadiums. Also many of the stadiums have been around for over 100 years so they have been expanded over the decades to max theoretical capacity.
I was in New York when the US hosted the last World Cup. I have minimal interest in the game but the match between Italy and Ireland at Giant Stadium was a huge event . Every team had ready made fans to support them.
109,000 people saw a soccer match at Michigan stadium a few years ago. Soccer is played near year round. If anything its more attended than sports like American football that only play for 4 months.
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