• World Cup

Qatar World Cup 'to be held in winter'

ESPN staff
February 19, 2015
Valcke satisfied with Russia progress

FIFA are set to confirm that the 2022 Qatar World Cup will take place in November and December of that year, according to reports.

Sports Illustrated have revealed that a FIFA task force will meet in Doha next week and make the recommendation for a winter World Cup, and the FIFA Executive Committee is set to ratify the decision at its meeting in Zurich in March.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has previously admitted that the tournament cannot be played in the summer due to average temperatures in Qatar rising to nearly 50 degrees Celsius during the World Cup's traditional June and July calendar spot.

Wary of interrupting the usual club football calendar, which runs through the months of November and December, the European Club Association and the Association of European Professional Football Leagues submitted presentations to FIFA suggesting April and May 2022 or May and June 2022 as alternative dates for the World Cup, respectively.

These presentations look set to be ignored, throwing into question how the 2022-23 European season will roll out, and possibly affecting the timing of the 2021 Confederations Cup, a pre-World Cup competition that will also take place in Qatar.

Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich on December 2, 2010 © Getty Images
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