The cost of hosting a FIFA World Cup

Hosting a FIFA World Cup is an expensive affair and costs associated with hosting the iconic tournament have been on a largely upward trend since 1994.

While the 1994 FIFA World Cup is estimated to have cost $500 million, costs spiralled into the billions from the 1998 tournament.

The 2002 FIFA World Cup in Japan cost $7 billion and this figure more than doubled when Brazil hosted the tournament in 2014.

However, the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar by far remains the most expensive, with the estimated cost of the tournament standing at a whopping $220 billion.

While the expenses associated with the construction of new stadiums and/or the upgradation of extant ones account for a considerable amount of the cost of hosting a World Cup, in Qatar, stadium expenses have been reported to be in the range of $6.5 billion to $10 billion.

The remaining $210 billion in World Cup spends is associated with the country's broader Qatar 2030 plan that seeks to transform the Arab nation into a global innovation hub with top-notch infrastructure including airports and a sophisticated underground transport system.