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One of the promises used to justify Qatar as a viable host of the 2022 World Cup was that all the glitzy new stadiums built specifically for the event would be air conditioned to protect the participants and spectators from the 43-plus degree summer heat while maintaining a zero carbon footprint.
Local scientists even proposed solar-powered artificial clouds that would hover over the grounds and cost $US500,000 each.
Well surprise, surprise -- the company hired to build the air conditioning prototype that was used to sell Qatar's successful bid now says it won't work.
Leading firm Populous, which is designing the Sports City stadium in Doha, is trying to persuade Qatari organizers to scrap plans to have air conditioning at the venue.
Populous director John Barrow said the system is too expensive and "notoriously unsustainable" for the environment when used on a large scale.
"I think you can be more clever. It is about air movement, moisture in the air and it is about temperature at the right time of day," Barrow told delegates at the International Football Arena conference. "If we get it right … that is the way ahead."
Yes, it's even too expensive for Qatar. So what now?
Instead, he is proposing wind towers that suck up hot air to create fan-like air movement inside the 47,000-capacity stadium.
Wind towers? If you thought the Jabulani was bad, wait till you see a football that's getting whipped around the (un-air conditioned) pitch by wind towers.
Qatar's next little switcharoo: Instead of building all those expensive stadiums for the matches, they'll just have them play out in the desert. Fans can bring their own beach chairs.
too funny........and to be expected..
I wonder if they can switch the wind towers to suck..........like the event
Australia's bid got no votes because Australia coudn't demonstrate 1) the political will within its own borders, 2) an ability to deliver a FIFA event without it being beholden to localised special interests.
Propose to your missus by telling her it would be a boon for your relationship, especially with all the wedding gifts coming in. Do the traditional thing, man up, and request her father's permission to court his daughter, explaining you're heaps keen to share a bed with your other girlfriend and don't have any money, so if dad could get heaps of visitors to the reception that'd be tops. Then clean yourself off the curtains with easy off bam.
Australia's bid got no votes because Australia coudn't demonstrate 1) the political will within its own borders, 2) an ability to deliver a FIFA event without it being beholden to localised special interests.
England could and did on both, and yet got 2 votes. Blatter (and the rest of his allegedly corrupt cronies) out.
England, good on them for not being banned from European competitions any more. Please, are these the guys we're moralising about? The only place where "exercise caution and vote for nice white people" works is in the anglo sphere, and that place is still shrinking last I checked.
Maybe the Qatar bid, which has sh*t f***ing hot stadiums, received its votes as a testament to the endemic corruption present in the sport. That is nothing compared to the levels of corruption, of white croneyism, and frankly outright racism that would have been required to get more than 1 country voting for Geelong.
All the 2018 bids could demonstrate the two criteria, apart from the fact that Portugal & more importantly Spain are broke, and Belgium at the time didn't have a government. No problem with Russia getting it, just it would have been nice to drop over the border (maybe an international one by then) and go to some matches. There is stuff to do in Russia when you're not at a match.
Qatar is a joke. If you want to go sit in a desert for a month, be my guest. Even if I wasn't boycotting FIFA, a thoroughly impotent gesture I'm well aware, and mortgage etc to pay, I'd still not be going
