Out of all the sporting events hosted around the World Qatar will have something to show for what they hosted.
This is what we always here when a country "wins" the right to host a World Cup or The Olympics or another event of similar magnitude. I do think this is the normal type of spin justifying what has been spent letting the tax payers know where their money has gone. The bottomless pit called a "Legacy" justifying the bigger picture justifying the wastage as do we really need those extra stadiums as obviously we don't in most places?
Brazil 2014 the so called National Stadium is now used as a parking lot for buses- cost $900 million. the cost to maintain the stadium is a staggering $132K per month. This is never going to recoup the cost and is cheaper to tear it down.
When they hosted the Football World Cup in South Africa they built new stadiums next door to others that would have proves quite capable of hosting the half a dozen games without any objections or complaints. This on the surface makes no financial sense whatsoever and after the World Cup has been and gone then what?
I grew up living in a neighborhood sandwiched between Newlands Rugby Stadium and Newlands Cricket Ground and I felt I was the luckiest kid around. the Rugby stadium steeped in history was founded in 1890 and was shut down last year in February. Considering the oldest rugby ground in the world is Lansdowne Road being built 12 years earlier than Newlands. The Western Province Rugby Union was forced out of their ground in order to take over the vacant World Cup white elephant in Cape Town. How sad that this had to happen as all the history that has gone before has now all been lost. New does not always mean better as you cannot buy the history.
The same pressure has been happening in Durban at the Sharks stadium (Kings Park) where across the road is a brand new empty stadium that the Durban City Council wants to have them as a new tenant. These older stadiums will just be demolished justifying the new builds not giving two hoots what the real sports fan thinks. There was no legacy and the reason behind the builds all hinged on corruption at the highest levels. Imagine obtaining the concrete tender even when you have never bought or sold concrete in your life before as this is what went down. Another reason is they would also have total control over the tickets which they wouldn't have if they rented a stadium for the event but still would have made far more profit but then again couldn't hide all the dodgy receipts a new build can.
The Arena da Amazonia was used for 4 world cup matches and 2 other matches since. Cost $669.5 million is now being considered being developed into a prison. All of these events are littered with stadiums around the World standing empty costing the tax payers monthly to maintain.
There is one massive difference between Qatar's world Cup and South Africa's and that there will be some sort of legacy left behind. Qatar may have spent 20 or 30 x more than everyone else but they have something the entire country can benefit from and that is infrastructure they never had. A fully functioning international airport, metro systems, highways, hotels and the list goes on and on. They have rebuilt their country so that they can all benefit from this event when it is long gone.
In Johannesburg ,South Africa we had a new mono rail called the Gautrain which goes from the Northern Suburbs to the airport. No one uses this as it is just too dangerous as a passenger due to crime. I cannot think of one item that is left behind that has any real use case that you could say thank you. Qatar are lucky even though it was an underhanded deal to land the World Cup at least they have spent in areas where the people will benefit. Imagine using an event to rebuild your entire country and not end up wasting billions on stadiums you cannot use or don't need. I agree maybe they have one extra stadium in Qatar that is unnecessary for their needs but they have done well if we overlook all the negatives and try a positive spin at least.
