Qatar 2022: less than one month to go before the XXII World Cup, which will be unlike any other

The 22^nd FIFA World Cup will kick-off on Sunday 20/11/2022 at 17:00 CET with the opening match between Qatar and Ecuador (Group A) at the Al Bayt Stadium in Al-Khor (QAT).

The 2022 World Cup, the first ever to be held both in the Middle East and in November/December, in the middle of the football season, promises to be unprecedented in all respects.

Organisation, infrastructure, security, ticketing, fan experience, as well as compensation for workers and respect for human rights: there are many challenges for Qatar, which has never before hosted an event of such magnitude and which is preparing to receive more than a million visitors on its own soil, a territory of just 11,500 km2, or roughly the size of the Gironde department in France.

Among the particularities of the 2022 World Cup is the concentration of the competition's eight stadiums - only 50km between the two most distant venues - which can allow the most motivated spectator (and/or the luckiest one when buying tickets) to attend two matches on the same day (FIFA requires that there be more than four hours between the…