During six years following the sports scene in the United Arab Emirates, I often returned to one question:

Why does Dubai not have a big stadium?

Dubai has hundreds of big buildings, including the world’s tallest. Dubai loves big buildings. Much of its reputation is based on big buildings, and that skyline of skyscrapers.

But Dubai did not have a facility where more than about 15,000 people could sit and watch a sports event.

It seemed a mysterious void on the Dubai menu of grand projects.

Which soon will be rectified, it was revealed this week, with the completion of an $817 million, 60,000-capacity stadium.

Mohammed bin Rashid, ruler of the emirate of Dubai, this week “reviewed the design” of the big stadium, modestly named after himself. (Note the photo gallery coming off the story link, above.)

How far along the stadium is, in terms of construction, was not revealed.

Standing around and looking at architect’s renderings usually means, in the Western world, that the first shovel of dirt has yet to be turned.

In the UAE, it could mean the stadium is well on its way to being finished, presumably in time to serve as a performance center during the 2020 Dubai World’s Fair. Opening ceremonies, and such.

A few years ago, anyone driving around the city of Al Ain, southeast of Dubai, could not help but notice the huge building going up … but news organizations were not allowed to mention the existence of the project, even though tens of thousands of people saw it going up for months and months.

That eventually became the Hazza bin Zayed Stadium, 25,000-capacity home to Al Ain’s football club, and the third big stadium in the emirate of Abu Dhabi — after the aging Zayed Sports City Stadium and the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium, home to Al Jazira Club.

So, back to Dubai. Finally, a stadium.

To make any sense of Dubai’s lag here, is to consider a couple of concepts.

1. The infrequent need for a stadium that big. Each of Dubai’s soccer teams has a stadium that seats from about 10,000 to 15,000, and usually that is plenty big in a country with such a small (10 million) population. Pro soccer, in the UAE, is followed almost exclusively by the 1 million Emiratis, and rarely draws crowds in excess of 5,000. (Already, it is hard to imagine more than a handful of events being staged annually in the stadium. Maybe a President’s Cup (soccer) final, maybe a friendly between elite European teams.)

2. A sense that Dubai had abandoned the field in the “regional big stadium” category to Qatar, which had a big stadium in its capital, Doha, a decade ago. Qatar got the 2022 World Cup; Dubai gets the World’s Fair.

(Also, if the country needs a big football stadium only a few times a year, Abu Dhabi’s stadiums worked well enough. Not, Dubai will have presumably the coolest stadium in the country. Will Abu Dhabi’s sheikhs respond?)

Now, the last gap in the Dubai Big Building category? The 15,000-plus-capacity indoor arena.

Dubai is missing that, too.