FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 – the Al Rayyan Stadium

Football
Qatar

The next blog in our Qatar 2022 series covers the Al Rayyan Stadium in Doha. The most striking feature of this 40,000-seat arena is a glowing façade, made up of patterns that characterise different cultural aspects of Qatar. Built on the site of the former Ahmed Bin Ali Stadium, another interesting feature of the Al Rayyan is that it is constructed using 80% reused or recycled materials – many of which coming from the old Ahmed Bin Ali.

Gravity Media was contracted to install the cabling at the stadium and, as with our work on the Al Thumama, a key requirement was to set the facility up for its legacy use after the World Cup. Working with sports broadcasters Al Kass and beIN Sports, we ensured the design would support the multi-purpose nature of the facility, at the same time as catering for the main event: seven World Cup matches up to the round of 16 stage.

The system comprises 64 wall boxes, with the required 151km (94 miles) of cable including Triax, SMPTE hybrid fibre, audio and single-mode fibre cable. The installation took one year to complete.

There’s a lot of construction activity going on in Qatar, as the nation prepares itself to host the world’s biggest sporting spectacle. The biggest challenge for Gravity Media was to install cables while the Al Rayyan was still being built, working around other contractors and waiting for key services to come online. High temperatures and humidity also played an uncomfortable role.

The stadium was the fourth Qatar 2022 tournament venue to open, and will ultimately become the new home of Al Rayyan Sports Club. The surrounding area is also being transformed into a regional sporting hub, where locals and visitors will be able to enjoy six football training pitches, a cricket pitch, horse riding track, cycling track, gym equipment and an athletics track.

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