News on Qatar.

I’m going to start with some news recently released from FIFA, football’s governing body, in relation to the 2022 world cup in Qatar. The issue being the time frame in which the greatest sporting event in the world will be allowed to take place. A FIFA task force is proposing that the competition can only take place during winter of 2022.

credit image: skysports.com

    This raises a lot of issues for Europe’s top leagues which will be heavily disrupted by this reorganisation. The majority of Football Associations in Europe would prefer the traditional May/June/July option. The reason for this is not tradition as many people are worried about, the fallout would create havoc among Europe’s top leagues. Traditionally, seasons take place between late August and May. If the world cup were to take place during November and December, it would be occupying a large slot bang in the middle of the footballing season. This means that each Football Association would have to submit to a break of up to seven weeks, never mind recovery time, before their league can be resumed. This means leagues will have to switch to annual cycles instead of playing over two years. So games will have to be played in the summer, which isn’t such a problem for the English league but it is in the Serie A or in La Liga as it will be far too hot to play football at a professional level.

    It could be up to four years, when the next world cup takes place for this to be rectified, although that could also be solved by the Euros in 2024.
    There is another controversial issue. When attempting to bid for the world cup, Qatar was criticised over not being able to play the competition in the summer heat. They proposed an air conditioning system that would keep the main pitches, training pitches and fan zones cool, promising to run the competition in the summer. This was likely a major factor in Qatar securing the world cup and yet they seem to have abandoned the technology which raises two questions. Why were they allowed to get the world cup? Why are FIFA letting them keep it? FIFA is already being accused of corruption, so this certainly won’t help.