Qatar currently spends $500 million per week on infrastructure related to the 2022 World Cup, according to the emirate's finance minister.
This level of spending could continue until 2021, Ali Shareef Al-Emadi said, according to The Guardian. In total, more than $200 billion will be spent by Qatar in preparation for the international sporting event.
This whopping chunk of change dwarfs the $11 billion spent by Brazil for the 2014 World Cup, which was hailed as the most expensive since the competition began 84 years ago. Russia, the host of the upcoming the 2018 World Cup, plans to spend a total of some $10.7 billion.
Despite these staggering disparities, Emadi insists Qatar's World Cup will not be the most expensive in history.
"We are putting $200 billion in terms of infrastructure... If you look at stand alone, the World Cup, no it is not," the finance minister said.
Previously, officials had said that stadiums for the event will only cost $8 billion to $10 billion.
Emadi explained that much of the spending was on long-term infrastructure such as highways, rail, ports, airports, and even hospitals. As this infrastructure is not specifically for the World Cup, the finance minister doesn't see the $200 billion as the official price tag of hosting the event.
At the same time, the impetus for the rapid development of the infrastructure is the 2022 World Cup. While Qatar may have planned on building much of the infrastructure anyway, the World Cup has propelled the development at a faster pace.
This high spending comes as Qatar, which depends heavily on its natural gas and oil resources, faces a second year of multi-billion dollar budget deficits. Due to low oil and gas prices globally, the emirate ran a budget deficit of more than $12.8 billion in 2016 and expects to run a budget deficit of $7.8 billion in 2017.
Although Qatar has trimmed its budget significantly as a result, Emadi said the World Cup spending hasn't been touched.
