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World Cup stadiums attract international contractors

2 October 2024

Commentary
Colin Foreman
Editor

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A joint venture of Spain’s FCC and the local Nesma & Partners has been awarded the contract to build the Mohammed Bin Salman Stadium at Qiddiya.

The project involves building a 45,000-seater stadium on top of the 200-metre-high Tuwaiq cliff and is a key step forward in Saudi Arabia’s World Cup infrastructure build programme.

The contract award is also the latest demonstration of how high-profile stadium projects continue to attract the world’s leading international construction companies despite their reputation for being risky projects that often result in financial losses. Past losses have been so great that stadium projects have even been called contractor busters.

Stadiums attract contractors because they are architectural statements with complex designs. They also typically have fixed deadlines for a major sporting event, such as an Olympics or a World Cup, which means time is more of a priority than costs.

Those two key factors that attract contractors are also major risks. Complex designs are expensive to build and require specialist engineering and subcontractors. This complexity, combined with tight deadlines, means these works often run over time and budget.

Managing this risk is a major challenge, and it is why these projects require international contractors who have worked on similar projects in the past. FCC has worked on several major stadium projects around the world, including Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, which was recently recognised as the best stadium in the world in 2024 by the World Football Summit.

The company also has experience working on stadiums in the Middle East and North Africa region. It was the contractor for a 50,000-seater football stadium in Algeria and, through its subsidiary Alpine, the Dubai Cricket Stadium in the UAE. 

FCC is not the only international contractor to have signed up to work on Saudi Arabia’s World Cup stadiums this year.

A joint venture of Belgian contractor Besix and the local Albawani has been awarded the contract to build the 47,000-seater Aramco football stadium in Al-Khobar. Beijing-headquartered China Railway Construction Corporation and local contractor Sama Construction for Trading & Contracting won the contract to construct the Jeddah Central stadium project.

The contract awards this year are just the start, and as momentum on the Saudi World Cup build programme gathers pace, more international contractors will seek work in the future.

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Colin Foreman

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