DOHA (Reuters) – Qatar has ordered most government employees to work from home during next month’s soccer World Cup while schools will have reduced hours two weeks before the tournament before shutting as the country prepares for a big influx of visitors.
Qatar is the first Middle East country to stage the World Cup that kicks off on Nov. 20 with the final set for Dec. 18.
It hopes the tournament will attract roughly 1.2 million visitors, or almost half of the conservative country’s population, posing a logistical and policing challenge.
For this reason the government said late on Wednesday that 80% of its workforce would be working from home between Nov. 1 and Dec. 19.
Public and private schools will have shortened classes only until noon between Nov. 1 and Nov. 17 and will then be closed for the entire period of the World Cup and until at least Dec. 22.
Mohammed Al Hajri, spokesperson for Qatar’s Government Communications Office, said in a video the measures had been decided after “taking into consideration the public interest and in line with the state’s preparation for hosting this event.”
A total of 32 teams have qualified and matches will be played at eight stadiums clustered around Doha, the only major city in Qatar, which is the smallest state to host soccer’s biggest event.
The Gulf Arab state has built a new transport network in the lead up to the tournament, including expressways and a metro system that started operations in 2019, but it has never handled the kind of visitor numbers expected during the World Cup.
(Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi and Andrew Mills, Writing by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Ken Ferris)
