What cash can do

摘要

To many people, Qatar's bid to host the football World Cup in 2022 seemed as improbable as the Jamaican bobsleigh team. The 3.2m football fans from around the world who attended this year's World Cup tournament in South Africa were twice as numerous as Qatar's entire population, which anyway shrinks during the summer months, when the matches are to be held. The heat in Qatar in that season can rise to 50℃. The organisers' proposal is to blow ice-cold air into the stadiums. This may be out of tune with the stated drive by the International Football Federation (fifa) for "sustainability". But the big footie freeze will in theory be powered by solar-heated panels.