Underwater TV studio for Qatar 2022?

Qatar is considering building an underwater broadcast studio for use during TV coverage for the FIFA World Cup in 2022, a designer working on potential plans for the project has revealed.

“The project we are in the process of designing for is an underwater broadcast centre and is quite a real possibility,” Patrick Douglas, CEO of Reef Worlds, told Arabian Business in a phone interview from its base in Los Angeles.

Douglas said Qatar’s World Cup authorities “like the design” and “they like the notion of doing the World Cup underwater with sharks swimming around.”

The site for the proposed underwater broadcast centre would be a carved out area of rock, which would then be turned into a giant aquarium.

The project is likely to cost around $30 million to build and Douglas said the funding for it would be underwritten by broadcasters eager to use the unusual venue as a broadcast base when the Gulf state hosts the FIFA World Cup in 2022.

“You could underwrite the entire thing with one Sky or Latin broadcast network, they will pay you enough money to finance this thing,” Douglas claimed.

A final decision on whether to green light the project will be made in around two months’ time.

US-based Reef Worlds became active in the Middle East market last year and announced plans to build “sustainable underwater tourism sites” in Dubai, the UAE and the wider Gulf.

It is also currently working on an underwater amusement park project on The World, the manmade series of islands in the shape of the map of the world off the coast of Dubai, which he said will hopefully move forward this year.

The Qatar TV station proposal is the latest lavish underwater project to be pitched in the Gulf in recent weeks. Last month, Arabian Business reported a Polish architect confirmed he was is pitching designs for an underwater tennis centre off the coast of Dubai and is currently seeking investment from local backers to make the concept a reality.