The Wall Street Journal: Lusail City a Monument to Qatar’s Ambition

Lusail City

The Wall Street Journal praised the Lusail city and its majestic architectural edifice represented in the Lusail Stadium, which hosted the final match of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 yesterday.

In a report published on its website, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said that Lusail city, built from scratch over the past 20 years, is a monument to Qatar’s ambition which may extend to other major events beyond yesterday’s World Cup final.

The World Cup final took place in a giant golden basket of a stadium, located in the middle of a futuristic city called Lusail, the paper said, noting that twelve miles north of Doha, it comes with skyscrapers, a university, wide-open boulevards and a marina for luxury yachts. 

Twenty years ago, the entire city was no more than a pile of sand, it added.

“There was nothing there, it was like a dirt road,” the paper quoted Brian Jennett, an urban planner and architect who worked on the initial designs for the city, as saying. 

“Not everybody is totally confident that any project like this is going to happen when you’re drawing it. One in 10, 1 in 20, 1 in 100 of these things might happen.”

WSJ said that initially conceived as part of Qatar National Vision 2030 project, designed to diversify the economy and position it as a global player, Lusail was planned as a tourism hub. But when Qatar won the hosting rights for the World Cup in 2010, the late addition of an 89,000-seat stadium gave the brand new city a brand new purpose, it added.

“Now, as it stages the world’s most-watched sporting event on Sunday, Lusail stands as a symbol of Qatar’s naked ambition, rapid modernization and its wild excess,” it said.

On the other hand, the paper commended the great and successful organization of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, saying that the country was able to stage the tournament with few operating problems, as a new transit system functioned as planned, and Qatar seemed to handle the large influx of foreign visitors who came in and out of the country as their teams rose and fell.

The Qatari organisation of the World Cup also received great praise from FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who said on Friday “Thanks to everyone involved, Qatar, all the volunteers to make this the best World Cup ever.”

“Qatar’s ambitions for Lusail don’t stop there. There are already plans to bring other high-profile sporting events here. 

"The city will stage knockout-round matches in next season’s AFC Champions League tournament and a Formula 1 Grand Prix, while Qatar prepares to host the 2023 Asian Cup and is rumored to be preparing a bid for the 2036 Summer Olympics,”  The Wall Street Journal said. 

(QNA)