Riyadh: It was billed as "the most unique stadium in the world," a key pillar of Saudi Arabia's World Cup 2034 plans. But now Neom Stadium, part of the kingdom's ambitious aims to build a 170-kilometer-long (111-mile) city in the desert known as The Line, looks set to be scrapped, with the broader project scaled back significantly.
A recent Reuters report said the stadium, which according to the country's bid book was going to be "350 meters (1,148 feet) above ground" and have "stunning vistas, and a roof created from the city itself," would no longer be built for the tournament, where it was to host a quarterfinal and several other games.
Observers of the gulf country saw this coming.
"When I was in Saudi Arabia in December there were already plenty of signals that the whole Neom project was being put on the back burner, if not abandoned altogether," F. Gregory Gause III, a regional expert from the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington D.C., told DW.
"I see it as part of a general reevaluation of their fiscal situation, both in light of the oil market before the current war and in light of the damage that the war is doing. The drawback from sports commitments is just part of a more general reassessment of priorities in the current, more straitened, situation."
Priorities changing, with sports losing out
Saudi Arabia's sports splurge that saw players like Cristiano Ronaldo join the country's football league and the kingdom invest in all sorts of sports in myriad ways has slowed dramatically. The country pulled funding for the multibillion dollar LIV Golf as well as events in snooker, tennis and rugby and also withdrew from ambitious plans to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games in Neom.
Sports had formed a key part of Saudi Arabia's Project 2030, which aimed to diversify the country's economy away from oil and increase its soft power. But Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi-government operated Public Investment Fund (PIF), which also owns Premier League football club Newcastle United, said earlier this year that the PIF was "reassessing its priorities" amid war in the region.
"The impact of the war has not only made the economic rationalization more important, but it's also accelerated the desire to rethink some of these projects in the sense that Neom is now being repurposed as an industrial center on the Red Sea, which has obviously assumed much greater urgency since the Strait of Hormuz was effectively blocked," Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, author of "Kingdom of Football: Saudi Arabia and the Remaking of World Soccer," told DW.
Parallels between Qatar 2022, Saudi Arabia 2034
There are, Coates Ulrichsen continued, clear parallels with the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where plans to build 12 stadiums resulted in only eight being used at the tournament. The Arab Spring uprising arrived shortly after the bid was accepted by FIFA and, though it didn't impact the country directly, it destabilized the region both politically and economically.
World Cup will still matter to Saudi Arabia
But though the scope and cost of it may be reduced, Saudi Arabia's softening commitment to sport will not likely apply so firmly to the biggest sporting event in the world, said Gause.
"I think it continues to be a major priority, because of its global importance and because the Saudis will want to do at least as well, if not outshine, Qatar's hosting earlier."
As such, the 2034 tournament will still likely be a high-end affair, with Saudi Arabia building most stadiums from scratch. But, said Coates Ulrichsen, it may look somewhat different to what was planned.
The regional expert thinks more matches could end up being hosted in the two biggest Saudi cities, Riyadh and Jeddah. This may be at the expense of some venues nearer the east coast such as Al Khobar or Al Ahsa.
Saudi Arabia host football's Asian Cup in January, which Coates Ulrichsen thinks will be an "early test of whether that is viable to have a weeks-long major tournament under these conditions."
Gulf Cup hosting a postive sign before Asian Cup test
"The fact that at least the Saudis were able to host a big event with 60,000 people in the stadiums, full stadiums without any security concerns [the Gulf Cup football final which they won this week] is a good sign," he said.