Saudi Arabia is planning a World Cup football stadium 350 metres (1,150ft) above ground level in its still-unbuilt futuristic city The Line.
The proposed venue, Neom, will be one of 15 stadiums built for the country’s 2034 World Cup bid, in what is expected to be the most expensive sports construction project ever attempted.
Eleven of the stadiums will be new, eight in the capital Riyadh and four in the second city Jeddah, according to plans unveiled by the Gulf kingdom’s sporting body.
Neom, which is intended to host the quarter-final fixtures, will be “the most unique stadium in the world” and will promise an “experience like no other”, its designers say.
The opening and final matches however, are planned to take place at the King Salman Stadium, which will seat 92,000 and have VIP areas as well as “VVIP” areas.
Another stadium, close to Riyadh and named after crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman, will hang over the edge of a 200-metre (660ft) cliff.
A total of 132 training venues spread across 15 cities were proposed as base camps for the 48-team tournament and more than half would be built from scratch.
Only bidder
Saudi Arabia has emerged as the only bidder for 2034, which has drawn sharp criticism from human rights groups over the country’s long history of political oppression and anti-LGBT laws.
There are also fears migrant labourers will be exploited, following the widespread abuses documented during the construction of Qatar’s £170-billion World Cup venues.
Saudi Arabia has paid huge sums to attract sporting events in recent times, moving from a backwater in international sports to be one of its major players. In 2034, the kingdom will also host the Asian Games, a two-week tournament with more events than the summer Olympics.
The Neom stadium will be part of Saudi Arabia’s projected 106-mile-long “linear city”, a zero-carbon, urban centre to house nine million people in the desert sands of the country’s deep northwest.
The multi-decade project, launched in 2017 by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, has been plagued by seemingly constant delays and criticism of its suspect political aims and the poor human rights records of its masterminds.
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