Al Gharafa Stadium
Officially Thani bin Jassim Stadium: the 21,175-seat home of Al-Gharafa SC in Al Rayyan — a working club ground rather than a tournament showpiece, and the base camp the United States squad called home during the 2022 World Cup.
Key facts
Design
Built between 2001 and 2002 and opened in 2003, this is a straightforward, well-kept club bowl: natural grass, continuous seating, floodlights and dedicated VIP and media areas, refreshed by a renovation in 2020. Its boldest design was never built — in 2010 Albert Speer & Partner drew an expansion to 44,740 seats for Qatar’s World Cup bid, wrapping the exterior in the colours of every qualifying nation’s flag over a modular upper tier meant to come down again afterwards. When the final venue list was settled Al Gharafa was left off it, and the concept stayed on paper. The Qatar Stars League lists the ground at around 25,000.
Events
Al Gharafa carries Qatar Stars League football week in, week out as the home of Al-Gharafa SC and Umm Salal SC. Beyond league duty it staged football and handball at the 2006 Asian Games, matches of the 2011 AFC Asian Cup, and World Cup qualifiers. During the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 it was not a match venue but served as a team base camp — the training home of the United States squad.
Video tour
LedPlayMeter at this venue
This ground is one of the five professional football venues in Qatar licensed to run their pitchside LED advertising with LedPlayMeter. The venues are going live in stages, delivered together with Techno Q, one of the Gulf region’s leading audio-visual systems integrators.
Other venues
Stadium facts and video: Qatar Stars League ↗ · Wikipedia ↗ · U.S. Soccer ↗ — LedPlayMeter is an independent software product and is not affiliated with the venues, clubs, federations or organisations named on this page.