Saudi Arabia’s $2.5bn NEOM World Cup Stadium Put on Hold

Saudi Arabia has reportedly shelved plans for its $2.5 billion NEOM Stadium, one of the most recognisable venues included in the country’s successful bid to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup.

Reuters reported on Sunday that the proposed 46,000-seat stadium has been put on hold indefinitely, citing two sources familiar with the plans. MEED Projects, which tracks major construction work across the region, now lists it as “on hold” with no completion date.

It was never an especially easy stadium to overlook. NEOM was planned more than 350 metres above the ground inside The Line, Saudi Arabia’s proposed linear city in the desert, and was due to stage matches from the group phase through to the quarter-finals.

A World Cup ground suspended hundreds of metres in the air was always going to attract a little more attention than another new bowl on the edge of a city.

Saudi Arabia was formally confirmed as host of the 2034 World Cup in December 2024 after presenting plans for 15 stadiums across five host cities. NEOM was one of the venues that gave the bid much of its futuristic image, although its current status needs some care.

There has been no official announcement cancelling the stadium.

NEOM and the Saudi government media office did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment, while the 2034 World Cup hosting authority said substantial progress was being made on tournament infrastructure without directly addressing questions about the venue.

For now, the stadium is reported to have been shelved and is listed as being on hold. Saudi Arabia still has eight years before the tournament, leaving plenty of room for the plans to change again.

Work elsewhere is continuing. The Aramco Stadium in Al Khobar is expected to be completed by the end of 2026, while MEED estimates the total value of Saudi Arabia’s stadium and associated facilities programme at around $22.7 billion.

NEOM had a bigger role in the original pitch than its 46,000 seats would suggest. It was one of the clearest examples of the type of World Cup Saudi Arabia was promising: huge new developments, ambitious architecture and venues that looked very different from the grounds supporters were used to seeing.

The proposed location helped with that.

Putting a football stadium 350 metres above the desert floor was never going to be mistaken for the conservative option.

Its shelving comes while Saudi Arabia is also reassessing parts of its wider development programme. Reuters reports that investment priorities have shifted towards projects capable of generating quicker returns, with some of the kingdom’s more expensive giga-projects being reconsidered.

That has particular consequences for the stadium because its future is tied closely to The Line. The wider NEOM development has already faced changes to its timetable and scale, making a venue built inside it harder to separate from those decisions.

None of this puts the 2034 World Cup itself in doubt. Stadium plans can change considerably in the years before a tournament and Saudi Arabia has both the time and the wider construction programme to replace or redesign the venue if required.

It would still be a notable omission from the version of the World Cup first presented to FIFA.

NEOM was meant to be the stadium people remembered before the tournament had even started. A ground high above the desert, built into a city that did not yet exist, was about as ambitious as World Cup bidding gets.

Eight years out, Saudi Arabia still has time to decide what replaces it.

The stadium that was supposed to sit 350 metres above the ground may never get there.