Al Janoub Stadium to host Qatar-Saudi showdown

Al Janoub Stadium will be the venue for the crunch semifinal between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the organisers announced on Tuesday. Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium will host the other semifinal between Iraq and Bahrain on December 5. The final will be held in Khalifa International Stadium, said Nasser al Khater, Deputy Secretary of Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, and the executive director of 24th Arabian Gulf Cup. Al Khater said the organisng committee is satisfied with the fans attendance in the matches. “The first round saw sale of 152,000 tickets. The attendance was 69 per cent of the sold tickets. Qatar matches registered the maximum fans attendance and two matches recorded a full house. These are positive statistics for Gulf Cup matches,” he said. Commenting on Qatar’s preparation for the Fifa World 2022, Al Khater said: ”The timeline set for the Fifa World Cup 2022 is going as per the schedule till now. Main work was completed in the four stadiums. Al Rayyan Stadium will be launched in the first quarter of next year. The completion of other stadiums is expected prior to the end of 2020. The Fifa Club World Cup and the ongoing Gulf Cup are rehearsals for the global event. Some of the clubs will attend in Doha for first time including Liverpool and Flamingo. It will be a great chance to deal with different fans as we were familiar with other Arabian, Gulf and Asian teams,” he said. The top Qatari official said the Fifa officials are available on the ground and attending different events in Doha to monitor the preparation. “During the Gulf Cup, 9,000 fans used metro transportation system to attend the opening match,” he said. Nasser al Khater appreciated the volunteer’s role in all the events. “We are depending a lot on the volunteers to organise the ongoing and upcoming events. More than 300,000 volunteers were registered in the system. We will have some filtration to select the right candidates including exams and language tests,” he concluded.