Thousands of Seats Empty Inside Al Bayt Stadium During World Cup Opener Between Qatar and Ecuador

Thousands of empty seats could be seen inside the Al Bayt Stadium during the second half of Qatar’s World Cup opener against Ecuador on Sunday.

The tournament began with a dazzling pre-match display which featured Morgan Freeman and Jung Kook, but on the pitch Qatar failed to excite the home supporters as they were two goals down to Ecuador by half time following Enner Valencia’s double.

Plenty of supporters left their seats during the half-time break, however, a significant number had failed to return for the second half and their absence was clear as large swathes of empty seats could be seen across the stadium.

The official attendance was announced as 67,372 during the second half, but there were considerably fewer inside the stadium as the game progressed.

Ecuador’s supporters at one end of the ground stayed on until the final whistle to applaud their side after they had secured a 2-0 win against the tournament hosts.

Qatar also had a small, noisy section of supporters behind the goal in the opposite end to where the majority of Ecuador’s fans were sat, but even that had thinned out before the final whistle was blown.

Gary Lineker, who was inside the stadium hosting the BBC’s live coverage, said that the empty seats during the second half was notable.

‘It seemed full at the start of the game,’ Lineker said.

‘Then at half time you said straight away, ‘a lot of empty seats’, we thought it was perhaps one of those things where they’d come back from the corporate things [for the second half].’

Former England striker Alan Shearer added: ‘This is an hour into the game, there were so many leaving, at half time as well.

‘They just never came back into the stadium, certainly not in the numbers that were there ahead of the game.’

FIFA announced last month that nearly three million tickets have been sold for the tournament, with Qatar topping the list of nations with the highest number of tickets at 37% of sales.

During the 2018 World Cup, FIFA launched an investigation after thousands of empty seats were seen during Uruguay’s 1-0 win against Egypt on the first day of the tournament.