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King Abdullah Sports City (Arabic: مدينة الملك عبدالله الرياضية), also nicknamed The Shining Jewel (Arabic: الجوهرة المشعة, romanized: al-Jawhara Al-Moshe'ah) or simply The Jewel, is a multi-use stadium and sports city located 30 kilometers north of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The City was named after Abdullah, King of Saudi Arabia when the stadium opened. The main stadium (King Abdullah International Stadium) is used for football, reaching a full capacity of 62,241 spectators. It is the biggest stadium in Jeddah, and the second biggest in Saudi Arabia, coming after Riyadh's King Fahd Stadium. Additionally, it is the 10th biggest stadium in the Arab world. Accompanying the innovative stadium are smaller sports venues surrounding the main stadium. It also hosts athletics and indoor sporting events in indoor arenas. The bid for the construction was won by Saudi Aramco and the contractor for this project was a joint venture between Al Muhaidib Contracting Company and Belgian construction company BESIX Group. The contract for providing the stadium safety, security, traffic management and contingency plans was awarded to a UK Company, Crowd Management UK Limited (http://www.crowd-management-ltd.com) who are also the lead security and traffic management consultants for The R&A who host The Open Championship annually. In addition to the written plans Crowd Management UK delivered a training course for key stadium operators at the Saudi Aramco training facility in Jeddah KSA. The company also provided an independent evaluation of the performance of local staff and the event safety officer (provided by Sword Security) during the inaugural event at the KASC stadium. This led to a significant number of safety and security recommendations and the appointment of a dedicated Stadium Manager. The stadium surface is paspalum turfgrass marketed as Pure Dynasty Seeded Paspalum and provided by Atlas Turf International.
