Education City Stadium

Education City Stadium is a football stadium located in Al Rayyan, Qatar, and was constructed in preparation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which will be held in Qatar. The stadium is located within various university campuses inside the Education City of the Qatar Foundation. The stadium will retain 25,000 seats for use by university athletic teams beyond the FIFA World Cup. The stadium staged its first official match on September 3, 2020, during the 2020–21 Qatar Stars League season.

The stadium is situated on the outskirts of the capital Doha and has a seating capacity of forty thousand. It has earned the moniker “Diamond in the Desert.” With twenty percent of its building components being eco-friendly, the stadium is among the most environmentally-friendly in the world. Education City Stadium achieved a five-star GSAS rating in May of 2019.

JPAC JV, the construction contractor, hired Pattern Design as the principal designer and Buro Happold for the engineering design.

Similar to other stadiums constructed for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Amnesty International has questioned its working conditions for migrant workers.

However, on 15 March 2022, FIFA’s president met with Qatar’s labor minister, Dr. Ali bin Samikh Al Marri, in Doha to discuss the country’s ongoing labor reforms.

In an interview conducted on 16 March 2022, Infantino stated, “I am pleased to see the strong commitment from the Qatari authorities to ensure the reforms are fully implemented across the labor market, leaving a lasting legacy of the FIFA World Cup long after the event and benefiting migrant workers in the host country in the long run.

The Education City Stadium will host the third-place match and final of the 2019 FIFA Club World Cup, which will be hosted in Qatar, FIFA confirmed on 30 September 2019.

The stadium would have also hosted Liverpool’s first semi-final match, but the official opening of Education City Stadium was delayed until early 2020 on December 7, 2019. Thus, the opening match, the final, and the match for third place were all relocated to the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha.

Qatar hosted the 2020 FIFA Club World Cup once again. The Education City Stadium was among the locations. The stadium hosted one second-round encounter, one semi-final match, the third-place match, and the championship match between Bayern Munich and UANL. In 2020, the Education City Stadium hosted East and West Zone AFC Champions League matches.

The stadium held five games at the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup.

Education City Stadium, like other stadiums constructed for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, has been the target of controversy about the treatment and status of migrant workers employed on the construction sites.

Amnesty International slams Qatar in a report for failing to investigate, redress, and prevent the deaths of migrant workers.

On 5 October 2022, the chairman of the International Trade Union Confederation stated that Qatar is now qualified to host the World Cup in 2022 due to significant changes in its treatment of foreign labor. Prior to the start of the international competition on November 20, Qatar got a storm of criticism for its track record regarding how it treats foreign workers. Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, told AFP, “We said in 2015 that there should be no World Cup without workers’ rights. I can now say that my advice to fans is to go the World Cup and enjoy themselves.” According to Sharan Burrow, Qatar must still make progress in implementing the new legislation, and the 6,000 migrant worker deaths over the past decade are a lie.

• Capacity: 40,000
• Location: Al Rayyan, 7km north-west of central Doha

World Cup Qatar 2022 – Matches on Education City Stadium

Education City Stadium is one of eight stadiums undergoing renovations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. It was completed in June 2020, making it the third World Cup stadium to be finished. It launched formally on June 15, 2020.

• 22 November  Group D: Denmark v Tunisia (1600 local time)
• 24 November  Group H: Uruguay v Korea Republic (1600 local time)
• 26 November  Group C: Poland v Saudi Arabia (1600 local time)
• 28 November  Group H: Korea Republic v Ghana (1600 local time)
• 30 November  Group D: Tunisia v France (1800 local time)
• 2 December  Group H: Korea Republic v Portugal (1800 local time)
• 6 December  Round of 16: Winners Group F v Runners-up Group E (1800 local time)
• 6 December  Quarter-final: Winners Match 53 v Winners Match 54 (1800 local time)