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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
David McDonnell

FIFA solves World Cup attendance confusion by increasing stadium official capacities

Stadium capacities have been updated on the official Qatar 2022 World Cup website - after questions over the validity of attendance figures.

Tournament organisers FIFA and hosts Qatar have laid themselves open to accusations of massaging the true attendance figures with the revelation of the updated stadium capacities.

The World Cup opener between hosts Qatar and Ecuador, which the latter won 2-0, was held at the Al Byat Stadium, which supposedly has capacity for 60,000 fans.

But the official figure given for the crowd was 67,372. After scrutiny of that figure, the capacity was later updated to 68,895 on the official World Cup website.

In the second game of the World Cup, England’s 6-2 trouncing of Iran at the 40,000-capacity Khalifa International Stadium on Monday, the crowd was given as 45,334.

Again, after controversy and scrutiny of the attendance figures published, the capacity of the stadium was updated to 45,857 on Tuesday afternoon.

FIFA claimed the Khalifa International Stadium was only 500 short of capacity for England’s opener, but great swathes of empty seats showed that figure to be wildly inaccurate.

For Holland’s 2-0 win over Senegal, at the Al Thumama Stadium, which allegedly can hold 40,000 fans, the official crowd figure for the game was given as 41,721, despite thousands of empty seats being clearly visible.

Plenty of empty seats have been seen at this World Cup stadiums - including in the opener between Qatar and Ecuador (ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images)

Again, the capacity of the stadium was updated to 44,400 after closer scrutiny of the attendance figures, when set against the original supposed number it was able to hold.

And for the 1-1 draw between USA and Wales last night, at the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium, which supposedly only holds 40,000, the attendance given was 43,418. Once again, in the wake of scrutiny of that figure, the official capacity of the stadium was updated to 45,032.

The biggest upset of the tournament so far, Argentina’s historic 2-1 defeat by Saudi Arabia today, was played at the Lusail Stadium, venue for the final, which originally held 80,000, but now has a capacity of 88,996, according to the updated figures.

The attendance given for the Argentina and Saudi game was 88,012, just 984 short of capacity, despite there being far more empty seats than that, according to those at the match.

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