By Andrew Warshaw
October 28 – As FIFA builds towards the latest meeting with football’s stakeholders to discuss exactly when to stage the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, one of the main winter sports bodies has warned against a clash with the Winter Olympics.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter is known to favour November-December to avoid the summer Gulf heat but there is a strong counter view that January-February would work better, partly because many countries have a winter break at that time and it would less disruptive to the calendar.
May has been suggested as a third option – or fourth if you include maintaining the traditional June-July status quo.
International Ski Federation (FIS) president Gian-Franco Kasper (pictured) has no sympathy for the position FIFA finds itself in as it prepares for next week’s second Task Force gathering of stakeholders to try and agree on some common ground and put aside vested interests.
“FIFA is trying to find a way out of a situation they created themselves,” Kasper told Reuters. “They could have thought about the weather in Qatar before but if they want to move into the winter, I think it would be possible to have it in November or December.”
“We could live with that. But if they want to move to January and February and overlap with the Winter Games or, like one FIFA representative said, just eliminate those Winter Games that have no interest, then of course I’m heavily opposed to it.”
Kasper appeared to be referring to AC Milan director Umberto Gandini, a prominent voice at the European Club Association who controversially argued recently that switching to January-February might be a workable solution since the World Cup was more important than the winter Games.
But Kasper says that would be counter-productive to both events. “If television networks have to cover two major events just one after the other, they cannot afford it,” he said.
Kasper’s views were supported by International Olympic Committee vice-president Sir Craig Reedie who, addressing the Host City: Bid to Win conference in London today, rejected Gandini’s comments.
“I think there is a general agreement between the two presidents [IOC’s Thomas Bach and FIFA’s Sepp Blatter] that there will not be a clash,” he told delegates.
“Certainly the IOC would prefer to see the World Cup, if it is moved, before Christmas rather than after it. We would not wish to have a clash between the World Cup and the Winter Games – which is a huge event in its own right as everyone could see from worldwide coverage of the Sochi Games. It doesn’t make sense to have these two events clashing.”
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