Much of Qatar’s emerging construction boom is being driven by preparations for football’s Fifa World Cup, which the country will host in 2022.

Qatar will need to have infrastructure in place for at least 400,000 fans, and must have transport links and accommodation before the first game kicks off. It has pledged to have 90,000 hotel rooms available.

The most obvious manifestation of Qatar’s World Cup investment programme, however, is the stadiums where the matches will be played. Three of these will be existing stadiums upgraded and nine will be built from scratch. Most venues will be modular, and after the World Cup, Qatar will remove 279,305 seats from the facilities. There are plans to send 170,000 of these to developing countries.

The football tournament is scheduled to be played during Qatar’s hottest months – June and July – when temperatures seldom fall below 37 degrees Celsius during the afternoon, or below 31 degrees Celsius at night. Cooling the stadiums will be a major challenge and one that project owner, Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee plans to address with cooling systems powered by clean, renewable technology, to achieve the first carbon-neutral Fifa World Cup.

London-based Arup Associates built a 500-seat model stadium to demonstrate the viability of such a plan to Fifa’s inspection team in September 2010. When the team visited, the outside temperature was 44 degrees Celsius and it was 23 degrees Celsius on the pitch.

It has yet to be seen if this success can be scaled up to keep more than 85,000 fans and players comfortable during the tournament’s first match in the Lusail Iconic stadium. It is the biggest facility Qatar will use and has been designed by UK architecture firm Foster & Partners.

The stadiums are currently in the design stage, although project management consultancy contracts have been awarded for the infrastructure works to Germany’s Albert Speer & Partner, the megaproject’s lead consultant. The main construction contracts on the first stadiums will be tendered in 2013 and 2014. The construction contract for the Education City stadium is expected to be released in the second half of 2013 and construction could start before the end of the year.