By Andrew Warshaw
March 19 – Michel Platini may be Sepp Blatter’s greatest critic when it comes to the veteran Swiss standing for a fifth term of office as FIFA president but one thing the pair agree on is that the 2022 World Cup in Qatar must be staged in winter.
As FIFA prepares to announce the actual dates for moving the world’s most popular sporting event from its normal slot to November-December, Platini has re-iterated why the traditional timing has to change despite leagues across Europe voicing their concern over the calendar being disrupted.
Platini, who chaired FIFA’s World Cup organising committee session on Wednesday ahead of the eagerly anticipated two-day executive committee meeting that began today, says he never once wavered from endorsing a winter tournament.
“I always said it will be a winter World Cup,” he told reporters. “I always said I’ll vote for Qatar but do my best for winter. I am totally coherent with what I said four years ago. I vote for what I am convinced is good for football.”
The UEFA president admitted his confederation would have preferred the tournament to be staged in January 2022 but a potential clash with the global winter sports schedule ruled that out.
He says he is happy with the compromise.
“We will have players in good condition. Normally, that means the football will be better in December than in June.”
Blatter has made assurances that the final will be no later than December 18 while the Task Force that has spent 18 months to assess the best period for 2022 has proposed a 28-day tournament instead of the usual 32, reducing the time clubs must hand over players for international duty.
So four and a quarter years after Qatar won the right to host the tournament amidst a spate of unproven corruption allegations , fans across the globe will at last discover when it will take place.
So will Hassan al-Thawadi, the Qatar 2022 CEO who flew into Zurich to attend the World Cup organising committee meeting and who is expected to issue a statement once the formal announcement on dates has been made by the exco. He will also pay particular interest to another Qatar-related agenda item, this time over the vexed issue of the treatment of migrant construction workers.
A timeline for candidates to stage the 2026 World Cup is also up for discussion. The CONCACAF confederation believes it will be their turn and Canada and the United States could be among the bidders. For the first time, the 2026 hosts will be selected by the full congress of FIFA member federations rather than the exco as part of the reform process put in place following the fallout from the joint ballot that sent 2018 to Russia and 2022 to Qatar.
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