By Mark Baber
June 19 – Qatar has moved swiftly to reassure the world’s football community that construction is progressing on stadia for the 2022 World Cup, despite the political, economic and social isolation attempts by its neighbours led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
By Paul Nicholson
June 12 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has expressed confidence that the diplomatic crisis surrounding Qatar in the middle east will not threaten the 2022 World Cup, but that FIFA is monitoring the situation closely.
May 23 – Qatar 2022 organising chief Hassan Al Thawadi has been explaining the impact and scale of his country’s World Cup project at the World Economic Forum in Jordan.
By Paul Nicholson
May 18 – Qatar will re-open the Khalifa International Stadium this weekend, the first tournament-ready venue for the first winter World Cup that kicks off 21 November 2022. Khalifa International will host group matches and knock out rounds up to the quarter finals in 2022, but before then it will host the 2017 Emir Cup final, 2017 Gulf Cup and 2019 IAAF World Championships.
April 7 – Qatar has agreed to heavily slash its budget for hosting the 2022 World Cup and is pressing ahead with eight stadiums, according to organising chief Hassan Al Thawadi.
April 3 – Qatar is taking advice from British security services as it builds towards the 2022 World Cup according to Hassan Al Thawadi, head of the tournament’s organising committee.
February 24 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has spoken of the need for Qatar to leave a lasting legacy when it stages the 2022 World Cup, almost certainly the last with 32 finalists.
February 22 – The 40,000-seat stadium to be built in the Al Thumama district of Doha, Qatar, for the 2022 World Cup, will have as its main contractor a joint venture between Qatari construction firm AlJaber Engineer and Turkey’s Tekfen Construction.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 10 – The man leading Qatar’s 2022 World Cup organisation has issued another strong defence of his country’s right to host the tournament pledging it will act as a unifying force at a time when global divisiveness is very much in vogue.
February 8 – Qatar’s World Cup organisers are splashing out a staggering $500 million every week on major infrastructure projects, the country’s finance minister has admitted.
January 20 – A British worker has lost his life working on Khalifa International Stadium in Qatar which will host the group matches and a quarter final at the 2022 World Cup.
December 13 – Qatari authorities say they have finally abolished the antiquated ‘kafala’ system tying foreign workers to their employers and which has caused so much conflict amid preparations for the 2022 World Cup.
By Paul Nicholson
November 30 – Qatar’s showpiece Lusail Stadium for the 2022 World Cup will be built as a Qatar-China joint venture between the China Railway Construction Corp. Ltd. and Qatari contractor HBK Contracting Co. The stadium is scheduled for completion in 2020 and will host the opening match and World Cup Final in 2022.
November 16 – Widely criticised over the treatment of migrant workers employed on construction sites, organisers of the World 2022 in Qatar have given the green light for its stadiums to be inspected by officials of the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI), a global federation of some 300 trade unions in the building industry that has a combined membership of more than 12 million workers.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 9 – The chief organiser of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar has dismissed any suggestion of the Gulf state being stripped of host status by saying it is a “done deal.”