Stadium 974 which is located in Ras Abu Aboud, 10km east of central Doha hosted its final World Cup game on Monday evening between Brazil and South Korea in the round of 16 stage. 

This stadium was unveiled during a digital launch in November 2021 and was built specifically for the FIFA World Cup. The stadium was constructed entirely from shipping containers and modular steel and  is the first fully demountable covered football stadium.

It was built to show Qatar’s commitment to cost-effective sustainability. This will make sure that Qatar does not have a stadium which will go unused after the tournament as other tournament hosts like South Africa, Brazil and Russia face these issues.

The number 974 which is also the name of the stadium represents the international dialing code for Qatar. The number 974 also represents the exact number of shipping containers used in the construction of this venue.

The 44,000 capacity stadium which was constructed to pay homage to Qatar’s long-standing tradition of worldwide trade and seafaring, is also the only stadium in the tournament without air conditioning. This meant that all of the games held at the venue were in the evening/night time. 

Though it has not been revealed by Qatar what the next use of this stadium will be after it gets taken apart, organisers suggest it could be used to build multiple smaller stadiums in the future.

According to The Associated Press, environment watchdog group Carbon Market Watch have said that the lower Carbon footprint of Stadium 974 will depend on “how many times and how far the stadium is transported and reassembled.”

Their total estimates suggest that the emissions will be lower than a permanent stadium but that is if the stadium is to only be reconstructed once and shipped fewer than 7,000km.

Karim Elgendy, who used to work as a climate consultant for the Qatar World Cup, said: “Designing for disassembly is one of the main principles of sustainable building. It allows for the natural restoration of a building site or its reuse for another function.”

The stadium hosted a total of seven World Cup matches with the first of those being between Mexico and Poland on the 22nd of November. The stadium ended its World Cup journey with a bang as Brazil ran out 4-1 winners after the dismantling of South Korea.

Stadium 974 also hosted the games between Argentina and Poland, Ghana and Portugal, France and Denmark, Brazil and Switzerland, and Serbia and Switzerland.

A total of 21 goals was scored in those seven games, an average of three per game.