Qatar will issue 10 tenders this year for project managers and design consultants on the stadiums being built for the Fifa 2022 World Cup, according to Yasser al-Mulla, project manager for the Al-Rayyan Precinct for the country’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy.

Speaking at MEED’s Qatar Projects 2014 conference on 18 March in Doha, Al-Mulla said 2014 will be the year of visible progress for the committee’s projects.  “We are in the advanced stages of design work for six stadiums, and this year we will see five stadiums begin the early works on foundations and construction,” he added.   

To prepare the necessary infrastructure needed to accommodate the thousands of fans who will attend the games, the current level of 15,000 hotel rooms in the country will be expanded to 95,000 by 2022, while Qatar Public Works Authority (Ashghal) plans to launch QR100bn-worth ($27.5bn-worth) of expressway and interchange projects over the next five years.

Doha expects to spend $4bn on building stadiums and related sporting infrastructure for the World Cup. The largest new stadium planned is the Lusail Iconic stadium, which will have a capacity of more than 86,000 people and is to be used for the opening match and the final.

In February, the committee appointed the US-based Aecom as project manager and Denmark’s Ramboll as design consultant for the Al-Rayyan stadium scheme.

In May 2013, Aecom was appointed design consultant and the local office of Kuwait-based KEO Consultants as project manager for the Al-Wakrah stadium project.