The Secretary-General of SC, Hassan Al Thawadi, and CEO of FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, Nasser Al Khater, with other officials during Volunteer Football Tournament at Khalifa International Stadium.
Doha: Hosts Qatar will be looking at a workforce between 20,000 to 30,000 volunteers at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, according to a senior official of the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC).
Nasser Al Khater, CEO of FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, disclosed the figure at a football tournament organised for a group of 60 volunteers at the iconic Khalifa International Stadium (KIS).
“Volunteers are heart and soul of any major sport event. The success of every tournament depends on volunteers and their participation and how they evolve and how you make them feel. For World Cup 2022 here in Qatar, we are working early with volunteers. We have a database of over 250,000 volunteers. We are aiming to have between 20,000 to 30,000 volunteers during the World Cup,” Al Khater said.
The SC successfully staged a unique football tournament for volunteers at KIS, a venue of 2022 FIFA World Cup, to mark the International Volunteer Day on Saturday.
The SC staged the event ‘to thank the volunteers for their continued support’ and ‘to build excitement about volunteering in Qatar’. Four volunteer teams — Team Together, Team Amazing, Team Qatar and Team 2022 — featured in the tournament. A total of 60 players played three matches — 20 minutes per match. Over 600 volunteers from 52 countries attended the events.
Winners of the volunteer football tournament celebrate at the Khalifa International Stadium, on Saturday.
Addressing the volunteers, Secretary-General of SC, Hassan Al Thawadi said: “We have two years to deliver the 2022 FIFA World Cup which will be a historic event — the first edition to be held in the Middle East and the Arab world. We are confident that it will go down in the history as one of the best staged World Cup editions. I ask you to continue what you are generously offering — your time, efforts, commitment, advice and feedback.”
Al Thawadi said that volunteers played a ‘great role’ in making the tournaments successful during last 10 years.
“Today is International Volunteer Day. We sought an opportunity to celebrate every effort you put in and every success that we built on in terms of hosting events with the help of your support, time and efforts,” Al Thawadi said.
“This is one day which is being celebrated because it is an official day but I would like to say again that we remind ourselves that we need to show more appreciation for volunteers before and after this day and continue doing it,” he added. Al Thawadi said that 60 volunteers got opportunity to play out of over 400 volunteers who submitted their requests.
“We will hold more events to show our appreciation and celebrate your dedication,” said Al Thawadi with a smile.
Al Khater praised the volunteers who appeared in the tournament. “We understand that you take a lot of your time and efforts away from your families and work to contribute for the success of any sports event. For us, you are the heart and soul of this World Cup,” said Al Khater.
“We would like to see you at the Amir Cup 2020 final to be held on December 18. We feel great joy that you are with us. You are the ambassadors for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. You are going to be future volunteers of the World Cup,” said Al Khater.
Workforce and Volunteer Director of the local organising committee, Rasha Saeed Al Qarni, said: “Today we kicked off the first volunteers football tournament at the Khalifa International Stadium. This tournament brings together talented and passionate volunteers to play in one of the World Cup stadiums,” said Al Qarni.
She said that the tournament was a massive hit as a lot of people wanted to participate and be part of it.
“We promise that we will work in the future to host more tournaments to provide opportunity to every volunteer. Today we witnessed 60 volunteers for competing teams as per of our first football tournament for the volunteers,” said Al Qarni.
