FIFA Club World Cup™ 2020 in February

Article posted by Coliseum, December 29^th, 2020

Image: Qatar 2022 & SC

After getting postponed earlier this year due to COVID-19 pandemic which still continues to wallop the world, Qatar will now host the FIFA Club World Cup™ Qatar 2020 from February 1^st to 11^th, 2021.

Six continental confederations, as well as the host nation’s league champions, will partake of in the soccer spectacle, which will be held across three FIFA World Cup™ Qatar 2022 stadia – Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium, Khalifa International Stadium and Education City Stadium – all in Qatar.

The FIFA Club World Cup™ is an international men’s association football competition organized by FIFA, the sport’s global governing body. The competition was first contested in 2000 as the FIFA Club World Championship.

The Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium, inaugurated just last week on December 18^th , will host the opening match between Qatari champions Al Duhail and Auckland City of New Zealand on February 1^st, and the final will be played at Education City Stadium on February 11^th.

Joining the two teams will be European champions and German side Bayern Munich, Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) champions Tigres UANL from Mexico, CAF Champions League winners Al Ahly SC of Egypt, along with Ulsan Hyundai (professional football club from South Korea), who recently laid claim to the AFC Champions League at a match played in FIFA World Cup™ Qatar 2022 venue Al Janoub Stadium.

The winner of the CONMEBOL Libertadores will determine the South American representative, rounding off this edition’s participants. The South American title winner will be determined by the end of January 2021. The draw to finalize the detailed pairings in the fixture will take place in Zürich (Switzerland) on January 19^th, 2021.

“Hosting the second edition of the FIFA Club World Cup™ in a row will allow us to build on our operational experience and apply learnings both from 2019, as well as the tournaments attended by fans in Qatar throughout 2020. It will help ensure we deliver an amazing experience for every fan when the Middle East and Arab world hosts its first FIFA World Cup™ in just less than two years’ time,” said FIFA World Cup™ Qatar 2022 LLC CEO Nasser Al-Khater.

“Over the past few months, during the global pandemic, we have worked diligently to ensure the safety, health and well-being of players and fans as we hosted several important local and international footballing events, and we look forward to welcoming the world’s best clubs in the New Year for what will be yet another important milestone on the road to Qatar 2022,” Al-Khater added.

The Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium which has got off the ground exactly two years before Qatar hosts the FIFA World Cup final™, can hold up to 40,000 spectators and best manifests Qatar’s commitment to sustainability, having been largely constructed from recycled and reused material from an older stadium that was once housed on the same site.

Education City Stadium, which has earned the sobriquet ‘Diamond in the Desert’, has taken a page out of the book of the rich history of Islamic architecture, blended with striking modernity. The façade features triangles that form complex, diamond-like geometrical patterns which appear to change color depending on the sun’s position.

The third stadium to be employed during the FIFA Club World Cup™ Qatar 2020 will be the Khalifa International Stadium. Widely regarded as Qatar’s national stadium, the facility which was repurposed recently, hosted the previous tournament’s final where the English side Liverpool F.C. won the title for the first time in front of an audience of more than 45,000 fans.

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