It was supposed to be one of the most extraordinary football stadiums ever built: a 46,000-seat World Cup venue sitting around 350 metres above the ground, incorporated into Saudi Arabia's futuristic megacity known as The Line.
The images made NEOM Stadium one of the defining symbols of Saudi Arabia's successful bid to host the 2034 World Cup. There would be no conventional stadium district or enormous car park surrounding the arena; instead, supporters were supposed to travel into a vertical city before watching World Cup football hundreds of metres above the desert.
Now there is a serious possibility that it will never be built.
Saudi Arabia has indefinitely shelved plans for NEOM Stadium, according to Reuters, after delays and a reduction in the scale of the enormous development that was supposed to contain it. Industry data cited by Reuters now lists the estimated $2.5 billion stadium simply as "on hold", with no completion date.
So what exactly was NEOM Stadium, why was it supposed to be built so high above the ground, and what happens to Saudi Arabia's 2034 World Cup plans if it disappears?
What was NEOM Stadium supposed to look like?
NEOM Stadium was never intended to be a normal football ground with a futuristic exterior. Its location was the extraordinary part of the proposal.
The stadium was designed to form part of The Line, Saudi Arabia's planned linear city in the country's north-west. The much-publicised concept envisaged an enormous mirrored urban structure stretching through the desert, with homes, offices, transport, entertainment and public spaces arranged vertically rather than around a conventional road network.
Saudi Arabia's official World Cup bid proposed placing the stadium more than 350 metres above ground level within that structure. It would have had a capacity of more than 46,000 spectators and was expected to stage matches during the 2034 World Cup, including a quarter-final.
The original bid timetable envisaged construction beginning in 2027 and completion in 2032, giving organisers roughly two years before the tournament. Saudi Arabia's bid documents were submitted to FIFA in 2024, and the country was formally appointed host of the 2034 World Cup later that year.
Even among the collection of huge new stadiums proposed for 2034, NEOM immediately stood out. The concept effectively turned the stadium itself into part of a skyscraper-scale city, rather than treating it as a separate building.
Why was the stadium going to be 350 metres above the ground?
The height was not simply an architectural trick designed for the World Cup. NEOM Stadium depended on the broader concept behind The Line, where much of the city's infrastructure was supposed to be stacked vertically inside an enormous structure.
That relationship is crucial to understanding what has happened to the stadium. Building NEOM Stadium only made sense if enough of The Line existed around it to support a functioning World Cup venue: transport, accommodation, access routes, utilities and the enormous structural environment in which the arena was supposed to sit.
The problem is that The Line itself has changed significantly since those spectacular concepts were first presented.
Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Public Investment Fund, which owns NEOM, confirmed in April that The Line was no longer a priority and said the project was not essential for completion before 2030. He denied at the time that projects had been cancelled, but Reuters now reports that the stadium planned inside it has been shelved indefinitely. Reuters
In other words, the fate of the world's proposed 350-metre-high football stadium appears to be directly connected to the much bigger question of how much of The Line will actually be built, and when.
How much was NEOM Stadium going to cost?
There was no small price attached to turning the concept into reality. MEED Projects, a construction intelligence company whose analysts track projects across the region, estimates the cost of NEOM Stadium at approximately $2.5 billion.
The same database now categorises the 46,000-seat project as "on hold" and gives it no completion date. By comparison, other Saudi World Cup stadium and infrastructure projects remain at various stages of development, with completion dates stretching from 2026 to 2033.
The stadium therefore sits within a much larger construction programme. Saudi Arabia plans to build or renovate 15 stadiums across five host cities for the 2034 tournament, alongside dozens of training facilities and the infrastructure necessary to stage a 48-team World Cup.
MEED estimates the combined value of the projects it tracks for the tournament at around $22.7 billion. That helps explain why losing one spectacular stadium would not mean losing the World Cup itself, even if NEOM had been one of the most recognisable projects in the original bid.
Has NEOM Stadium officially been cancelled?
Not quite — and the distinction matters.
Reuters reports, citing two sources familiar with the situation, that plans for NEOM Stadium have been shelved indefinitely. MEED lists the project as "on hold", rather than completed, under construction or formally cancelled.
Saudi authorities have also stopped short of publicly announcing that NEOM Stadium has been removed from the 2034 World Cup. NEOM and the Saudi government media office did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment, while the Ministry of Sports referred questions to the World Cup 2034 Hosting Higher Authority.
The Hosting Higher Authority told Reuters that "substantial delivery" of construction milestones for the tournament was already taking place, but did not directly answer questions about NEOM Stadium or its cost.
So the safest description at this stage is that the project has been put on indefinite hold. Unless those plans are revived, however, Saudi Arabia will eventually need to modify the stadium programme that formed part of its successful World Cup bid.
Does this put the 2034 World Cup in danger?
There is currently no indication that Saudi Arabia's hosting of the tournament itself is in doubt. FIFA formally appointed the country as the 2034 host in December 2024 after evaluating its bid, including infrastructure, services, commercial considerations, sustainability and human-rights requirements.
More importantly, NEOM Stadium represents only one piece of a much larger venue plan. Work on other World Cup projects is continuing, and Reuters reports that Aramco Stadium in Al Khobar is expected to be completed by the end of 2026 and stage its first match in January. A source familiar with the programme also told Reuters that construction on other planned stadiums was moving ahead.
What could change is the final list of stadiums. If NEOM does disappear from the programme, Saudi organisers would need to adapt the venue plan well before 2034, either by introducing another stadium, expanding the role of existing venues or redistributing matches originally intended for NEOM.
There is plenty of time to make those changes. The more significant loss would be symbolic: no other proposed venue captured Saudi Arabia's futuristic vision for the tournament quite like a football stadium suspended hundreds of metres above the desert.
Why has Saudi Arabia put the project on hold?
NEOM Stadium is part of a wider shift in Saudi Arabia's investment priorities rather than an isolated football decision. Reuters has previously reported that the Public Investment Fund has been moving some attention away from enormously expensive "giga-projects" towards investments capable of generating financial returns more quickly.
That has already affected other ambitious developments. Construction of The Mukaab, the enormous cube-shaped centrepiece of Riyadh's New Murabba project, was suspended earlier in 2026, while The Line has been delayed and its near-term priorities reconsidered.
The kingdom is also dealing with broader economic pressures, including a larger projected fiscal deficit and disruption to energy activity. Against that background, committing an estimated $2.5 billion to a stadium whose construction depends on another hugely complex megaproject becomes a very different proposition from the one presented when Saudi Arabia prepared its World Cup bid.
That does not mean the idea can never return. With eight years remaining before the tournament, plans can change again, and Saudi authorities have not formally declared NEOM Stadium dead.
But the original vision — tens of thousands of supporters travelling into The Line to watch World Cup football 350 metres above the ground — is no longer something that can be treated as an inevitable part of the 2034 tournament.
For now, one of the most extraordinary stadium concepts football has ever seen exists exactly where the project data says it does: on hold.
Published by Patrick Jane
04.10.2026