Plans to construct one of the more forward-looking venues earmarked for the 2034 FIFA World Cup are being set aside by Saudi Arabia, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, following delays and a scaling back of the wider development in which the stadium was to be located.
Designed to sit within a 160-kilometre steel-and-glass corridor called The Line — itself one component of the wider NEOM development — the stadium was conceived as a venue elevated above ground level. Launched roughly a decade ago, NEOM sits at the heart of Vision 2030, a programme Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman put forward to broaden the kingdom's economic base and reduce its dependence on oil revenues.
In April, the Public Investment Fund's governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, indicated that The Line had dropped from the top of the fund's agenda, adding that delivery before 2030 — the date originally set for the project's first phase — was not a requirement. No cancellations had taken place, he told reporters.
Two unnamed sources indicate that construction of the NEOM Stadium has been put on hold with no set timeline for resumption. Requests for comment sent to NEOM and the Saudi government media office went unanswered, and the Ministry of Sports pointed enquiries toward the World Cup 2034 Hosting Higher Authority rather than addressing them directly.
Responding to questions about the NEOM Stadium and project costs, the Authority pointed to what it described as "substantial delivery" of construction milestones already under way, while leaving both topics unaddressed. Photos of several other venues still under construction were released alongside the update.
Hosting the 2034 World Cup represents a centrepiece of Saudi Arabia's broader sporting ambitions, which have drawn billions in funding from the Public Investment Fund as part of the country's Vision 2030 development agenda. Hosting the expanded 48-team competition for the first time falls to a single country at this edition of the tournament.
Plans are in place to construct or refurbish 15 sporting venues spread across five host cities, alongside dozens of dedicated training sites. According to figures that MEED Projects — a Dubai-headquartered platform supplying construction-sector intelligence through a dedicated analyst team monitoring regional tenders and contracts — provided to a news outlet, the combined worth of those tracked projects stands at $22.7 billion.
Figures published by MEED put the projected price tag for the NEOM stadium at $2.5 billion. A venue pencilled in at 46,000 seats appears in the database under a status of "on hold." No target completion date appears in the records for that venue, while the broader dataset places the remaining arenas and support facilities at varying points along a construction timeline stretching from 2026 through to 2033.
Conflict-linked disruptions have cut into energy shipments and left parts of the kingdom's infrastructure in disrepair, as Saudi Arabia contends with continued Houthi attacks amid the broader hostilities involving Iran. Finance ministry officials projected, in statements issued the prior week, that the budget shortfall for the current year would run deeper than earlier estimates had indicated, alongside a 3.6% contraction in real GDP tied to reduced output from oil-related activities.
How the venues are spread across different locations compounds the difficulty of keeping those construction efforts on track, a third source noted. Delays and reductions in scale affecting venues tied to projects such as The Line and Riyadh's New Murabba development stand to worsen that shortfall, the source noted.
Reports from January indicated that work on the Mukaab — a cube-shaped tower planned as the centrepiece of the New Murabba development in Saudi Arabia — had been put on hold. Reporting from an outlet with an established track record noted, in the prior year, that the PIF had begun redirecting its attention away from expensive large-scale development ventures toward initiatives capable of generating returns within a shorter timeframe — a direction that Saudi officials subsequently put into their own words publicly.
Separate World Cup-related developments continue to advance on schedule. Ticket sales are already open for the inaugural match at Aramco Stadium, a venue under construction in Al Khobar on Saudi Arabia's eastern coast, with the facility on track to wrap up building work before the year closes and welcome its first fixture in January. Construction on the remaining stadium projects in the pipeline is continuing, according to a fourth person with knowledge of the matter.
