Fifa World Cup: Qatar showpiece to be most expensive ever

The bill being paid by Qatar for the most expensive World Cup ever held is set to rise to fantasy levels in the one month left to the November 20 kick-off.

Gleaming new stadiums that cost more than $6.5 billion are ready, a driver-less metro system with a price tag of $36 billion serves five of the eight venues.

The palm tree-styled street lamps and neon office blocks that line the highway from the expanded international airport to central Doha will be an instant sign to the million-plus incoming fans that the first World Cup in an Arab nation is going to be a glitzy affair.

But with Qatar's organisers desperate to convince the world of the event's lasting legacy, more cost is likely.

Qatar's natural gas riches have given the emirate seemingly bottomless pockets to pay for the football extravaganza.

But mind-boggling estimates of up to $300 billion have been given for the total infrastructure spending over the past decade.

By contrast, the 2014 World Cup in Brazil cost an estimated $11.5 billion and Russia 2018 about $14 billion.

Qatar, with a population of just 2.8 million, is one of the world's wealthiest countries. And comparisons are unfair, according to Danyel Reiche, a visiting associate professor at Georgetown University Qatar who is leading a research project on the World Cup.

"So much of the infrastructure spending was already part of Qatar's 2030 development plan and has just been brought forward for the World Cup," he said.

Fifa has lauded Qatar's preparations and the eight stadiums designed to highlight Arabic tradition and culture.

But he believes that apart from attacker Akram Afif they lack an "international dimension" and that could cost Qatar their World Cup ambitions.