By RYAN TOLMICH
The prospect of a winter World Cup is appearing more and more likely.
In a meeting Tuesday, a FIFA task force assessed the possibility of holding the 2022 World Cup in the winter months. The group discussed both January-February 2022, which would conflict with the Winter Olympics, or November-December 2022 as potential dates. In addition, FIFA is looking into the possibility of holding the tournament in April-May, although those dates would conflict with the month-long period of Ramadan.
The committee also discussed a report on potential health hazards that could result from holding a summer World Cup in Qatar.
“The objective of today’s meeting was to receive feedback from all parties and to work on narrowing the options,” said Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, president of the Asian Football Confederation.“We are pleased with the level of detail provided by the participants and with the productive discussions that took place today.
“We now have a greater understanding of where each of the stakeholders is coming from and we will carefully consider these opinions as we move forward towards defining the international match calendar.”
The panel will now review the potential proposals ahead of the task force’s next meeting in early 2015.
“We are getting closer to narrowing the dates for the FIFA World Cup to two options – January/February 2022 or November/December 2022 – but FIFA has also been asked to consider May 2022,” said FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke. “We will summarize what we’ve heard today and provide feedback to all parties in order for them to prepare for the next meeting as we progress towards a final decision.”
What do you think of the recent meetings? Which dates would you prefer for the 2022 World Cup?
Share your thoughts below.
I am totally perplexed why ESPN, FoxSports, NBC, Sky, or some other major network has not made this a top story and had an on going, in depth coverage. There are so many angles that can be investigated with both the Cutter (RIP Norman) and Russia Cups. Perhaps in the end every thing will come off without a hitch and it will be found out that FIFA is not the corrupt organization some make it out to be (and China does not commit any human rights violations – HA!). But for the sake of it all there are sure a lot of questionable things taking place and it would be interesting to get to the bottom of all the FIFA BS.
I forgot to mention this, who will be USAs coach by 2022, we know kilns will be in Russia but Qatar, who will it be.
Pep, mourinho, kreis, vermes, Henry.
And what if by 2022 MLS has the international schedule after teams average more than 22,000 fans.
The real question is, how many teams will MLS have by 2022 and my heart says 22 but garber won’t do it.
I don’t get garber, MLS already has 22 teams and there is only TWO spots left when cities like Vegas, Minneapolis, Sacramento, Miami, can easily get in and MLS needs them, and that equals to 26 teams.
Plus San Antonio and all those are serious markets.
Another topic by 2022, will NASL survive or will MLS do something by then.
maybe a more bold option would be to stop crying about usa not winning the 2022 world cup bid. it sure sounds like sour grapes. instead of crying about not winning the bid, lets concentrate on going to Qatar, winter or summer, and winning the freaking event.
I mean jesus people, where is the common sense?????
Holding the WC in Qatar defies both logic and common sense. Because Qatar has been unable to deliver on its bid’s promise to cool off the stadiums in the Arabian desert with the technology that does not exist yet, the common sense is to strip Qatar of the WC and either do the new bidding or, alternatively, pick the bid that finished second, which happens to the US. It is not about US, Japan, Korea and Australia losing to a superior bid and having sour grapes, it is about bribery, corruption and lack of common sense that led to Qatar’s selection.
Eurosnob you can bring up any points you like. The hand of God happened, it just so happened that the greatest goal ever was also scored during the same game, by the same team. Yet, English to this day will claim they were cheated.
Nepalese are working very hard in the heat of the desert, on large construction projects, so that Qatar will be able to put on a first class World Cup. To me, it shows a bit of disrespect to those tens of thousands of workers who are working on this project, to suggest boycotting.
A Qatar World Cup is good for the USA. The more world cups held outside of Europe, the better this is for USA. Every other World Cup in Europe is not helpful for none euro countries, but it is great for European countries.
Who gets 2026?? Certainly not USA If we decided to boycott. USA is currently in the drivers seat for 2026 and 2030 is back to Africa, probably Egypt. There should be no complaints if two of the next four world cups are held in predominantly Muslim countries. This is the kind of appeasement and reconciliation that works, and here you want to go an F it all up.
Beyond the technologically impossible, there are other parts of the bid that were fabricated. 12 stadiums for instance, nope, there’s only going to be 8 now.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-20/qatar-cuts-number-of-world-cup-soccer-stadiums-amid-rising-costs.html
And what does that mean for the rotation of games? How often would each stadium have to be used to play all the group stage games in the normal fashion – once every 4 days? How does that affect the grass, which doesn’t grow all that well there to begin with?
The metro system and new airport are also well behind schedule – although it is still pretty far away.
Fulhamdc, I hope you also read the entire article you have presented as evidence. I mean, FIFA has a minimum requirement for the number of stadiums that would be feasible to host, and it happens to be eight. Which doesn’t account for existing stadia.
I wonder if our buddy chuck blazer got any money from the Qatari? The answer appears to be that they could not afford him. he was to busy taking money from his own federation.
Irrelevant. The Qatar bid included 12 stadiums. They continue to change the deal and we are still 8 years out. There are more than enough reasons to pull the cup.
Also, while I will never defend someone like chuck blazer, if you’re going to make wild accusations, you might want to include some evidence.
Try to think of it this way, if you want to buy a house, you bid a certain amount. If you’re bid is accepted, and you show up to the closing and say, “we changed are mind, we’re going to give you only 67% of what we bid” do you think you’re going to get that house?
Fulhamdc, I need more info on your real estate example. I need to know what the appraisal Came in at, because guess what, if the appraisal is 67% of the agreed on contract price, guess what’s happening if this contact is going to actually close? Also, I’ll want to know about the home inspection, many a contract falls through over home inspections, or sellers change their price.
What’s irrelevant about Qatar having the required number of stadiums to host the event?
The chuck blazer story is about four stories below this one
Fulhamdc, I should also remind you that the USA bid for the 1994 world cup stipulated that MLS would be started before the 1994 world cup.
I’m in beast mode right now. Somebody bring me something else to debunk
Again, wrong. The appraisal affects the mortgage you can get. It has nothing to do with the price you agreed to pay. A contract is a contract. If you can’t get the mortgage, you lose your deposit.
You’re not nearly as clever as you think you are.
And here’s an article from the new your, times from 1988 about the U.S. winning bid. It mentions nothing about a professional league.
Stop making things up.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/05/sports/us-awarded-94-world-cup-tourney-in-soccer.html
Seriously. Provide a link or go do the dishes like your mom keeps asking you too.
So we are debating soccer, I crush your whole stance, and you too euro snob, with the 94 world cup USA bid, and you come bAck with this weak response.
At least tell me your gonna be at RFK on Saturday at 230. This is nuts!!!
Fulham, you keep providing evidence that disproves your story. The new York times article opens up by stating that the world cup is regarded in”some” countries as the Worlds premiere sporting event. We know that’s not the truth. You presented a five line article as your proof that MLS wasn’t part of the 94 bid. Hold on mom, Im watching sponge bob, and I’ll get to the dishes after.
Sorry child. You were done with this line, “many Nepalese are working…”
No. Many Nepalese are dying in Qatar. Please. Just stop. Your embarrassing your self now. Good night.
let me start fresh. fulham, nice to meet you, we are both American soccer fans. im gonna be at RFK on Saturday. if you are a dcu fan and are at the game, ill get you a beer.
your new York times article really does have me at a loss. I hope you can admit that the article was written by someone who had no insight on the sport. not one iota. I hope you can admit that.
then you can read an article on ussoccer.com by clive toye. the 94 bid- how the US got the world cup- part 3.
pay particularly close attention to paragraph two, which talks about stadiums included in the application, and stadiums that ended up actually hosting. its good stuff.
I wonder what year they actually new it would be called MLS?
Dikronavich. Much respect. Yes. I’ll be at RFK on Saturday. I tailgate with the district ultras. Most weekends I bring the beer, but I won’t on Saturday.
So no need to get me a beer, but would love to meet you, we are down along the river, will be there by 1 pm. Looking forward to it.
agree with Eurosnob, a rarity. must be a compelling reason, which it is, and nothing to do with sour grapes. Move it to Australia, fine! just move it
You could have another read on this situation. FIFA seems to be saying that summer games in Qatar are out of the question. Do they now need to run through some sort of bureaucratic exercise in pretending to look at options, only to allow the confederations to say, ‘no way,’ before moving the games someplace suitable?
Of course, FIFA brought this on itself with the seemingly dumb choice of Qatar in the first place. But having made that choice, FIFA may feel like it has to pretend to exhaust all possibilities to make that choice work. And if that takes so long that only a country with sufficient existing infrastructure can be used as a replacement for Qatar, so be it. I’ve gotten the impression that some people involved want it moved to the U.S. anyway.
I HATE FIFA!! Corrupt Organization!!!
Which reminds me, I’m going to burn my souvenir captain’s armband which reads “Fair Play,” that I got at a past world cup.
Don’t be a hater.
next week: “FIFA will decide whether Russia can host the entire 2018 World Cup in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine and grant Eastern Ukraine the qualifying spot initially handed to Ukraine”
“We have to honor the host’s wishes for tournament that could brighten the people’s spirits after a difficult time”-said Sepp Blatter while stuffing dollar bills with both hands into a large duffel bag”
Grand conspiracy theory, they are drawing out this moving Qatar to winter to help them win the lawsuit involving the women’s world cup on turf.
I don’t really think that but with FIFA I would never dismiss anything as being too out there.
Perhaps FIFA will defeat the lawsuit by sending men to play on the turf fields in Canada and accommodate women by sending them to play on grass fields in Qatar. And then Blatter will hold a press conference to make his classy off the cuff remarks on these issues.
Well, I guess the secret investigation turned up nothing bad. Great news, Qatar can go on!
Finally the FIFA voting body has been vindicated.
I cant believe that these honorable men have had their integrity questioned.
or Maybe the 2nd round of payoffs was even bigger than the first?
FIFA is blithely assuming that all these huge-money UEFA leagues are just going to quietly bow their heads and go along with this.
I think that’s unlikely. If they push this, you could honestly be looking at a situation where FIFA throws a World Cup – and nobody comes. If UEFA bows out, the USA and Australia will certainly follow suit…and the next step would be, a non-FIFA World Cup held somewhere else besides Qatar, at the usual time. With a different soccer world governing body with a lot more transparency administering it.
FIFA has all the power its constituents lets it have, and this is just too much. Trying to force this down everyone’s throats is political suicide, but it’s astounding how brazen FIFA is being about this.
Personally, I would really like to see that play out.
The April-May plan they are considering was proposed by some Euro club commision or something. Under the plan all the Euro leagues would start a couple weeks early and pack a few more midweek fixtures in so they could be done a month earlier than normal. The main sticking point (as mentioned above) is that is overlaps with Ramadan.
And the fact that Qatar in May is still hotter than Hades. Instead of 140-degree temps it’s only 120. Whoo. Game on.
Just end this farce and yank the durn thing already. Qatar simply isn’t viable for a whole host of reasons, and they made a bunch of promises they can’t keep. You know, like air-conditioning the whole freaking country and putting up magic weather balloons that will cool off the desert. To say nothing of the fact that I don’t care to see an estimated 8,000 foreign slave-workers die just so Qatar can build the infrastructure they’re going to have to build to stage the thing.
This thing is already obscene on a whole bunch of levels. Why on Earth is anybody going along with it?
Its easy and the reason everyone goea along with anything
OIL Money
What upsets me the most is that 88th-ranked Qatar takes a spot away from a country that might actually be competitive. Although, they are ranked 6 spots above Australia. And I’m sure they’ll get all the help they need (think South Korean/Japanese WC).
more midweek fixture… a recipe for serious ACL injuries… as it is, a footballer’s body needs more time in between games to regen.
youre correct… FIFA cares about money…. throw Mexico, Japan, Korea in that group and you will have a WC in Qatar between south americans, africans and arabs.
The Muslims might not show if it’s during Ramadan.
i would also like to see the USA boycott, hopefully along with a number of other nations, any of these 3 options.
go thru qualification, qualify and decline the invite. i will go to all of the friendlies they play while the WC is going on.
FIFA would then ban you from subsequent WCs you may have in interest in playing/hosting.
Tunisia,Egypt,Libya, FIFATotal comedy that they can change the event because the place they picked is now all of a sudden deemed not suitable.
I don’t know why people don’t like this if Qatar does keep the Cup and they host it during the winter thats a big advantage to MLS.
how do you figure that JR?