World Cup stadium set to disappear completely, dismantling now in progress

There are a lot of firsts happening at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Among the many controversies, there are also positive innovations and technological advancements that have been in the spotlight. Now that the competition is heading into the quarter-finals, many were shocked to find out that Stadium 974 will permanently be retired and dismantled.

Qatar has landed in hot water for the questionable working conditions endured by migrant workers in order to build eight World Cup stadiums in record time. The event pushed through on schedule, and now that most of the games have been completed, Marca reports that workers have begun the demolition work on Stadium 974.

The demolition is not happening simply because Qatar wants to destroy it, but because it had always been meant to be temporary. Stadium 974 is the first "fully removable covered stadium" which has been used as a football venue.

With Qatar's relatively small population and small football community, they will be able to avoid having a massive abandoned structure once the event is over. Previous host countries of big sporting events like the Olympic games have previously had to deal with the maintenance of newly-built facilities that were no longer useful after the global events.

Stadium 974, which is named after the long-distance country code for calling Qatar, is meant to recycled. It is made of steel that will be repurposed in a big push towards sustainability. It also features a state of the art cooling system that has been developed to keep spectators comfortable in the desert even though the event had already been rescheduled to the cooler winter months.

It will be quite an extraordinary feat for Qatar to have staged World Cup matches in what was essentially a "disposable" venue. The cost to build Stadium 974 is believed to be close to 200 million US dollars. It is still unclear how the parts will be recycled and where they will be shipped off to after the demolition is completed.

The stadium is located along the Ras Abu Abboud highway, and it will reportedly be replaced by facilities for an oil company.

Stadium 974 hosted its first match on November 22 between Mexico and Poland. Over the course of the tournament, it hosted seven matches including Brazil's round of 16 knockout victory over South Korea.