LONDON: UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino yesterday added his weight to calls for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to be staged later in the year due to concerns over weather conditions.
The quadrennial tournament is currently scheduled to take place at the height of the Qatari summer, when temperatures in the Gulf state can reach an inhospitable 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).
Qatar plans to spend around £ 65 billion ($ 101 billion, 76 billion euros) to install air-conditioning systems at stadiums and other venues, but both FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his UEFA counterpart Michel Platini have called for the tournament to be moved from its traditional slot in the middle of the year.
Average temperatures in Qatar are markedly cooler in December, with highs of 24C and lows of 15C.
Although the major European leagues oppose the proposed changes, owing to a reluctance to alter their schedules, Infantino says the World Cup should take account of each host country’s specific climatic conditions.
“Whenever you play the World Cup should be the best period for it. I had the same reflections on South Africa in 2010,” he said in an interview with British newspaper The Times.
“Four years earlier in Germany, it was nice sunshine. South Africa is a beautiful country, but at five o’clock, it’s night and it’s 0C. It’s not a celebration of football.” Infantino also said he was puzzled by the historical insistence that football should always be played during the winter months.
“You see people in stadiums with hats and scarves,” he said. “Why did England, who brought to us this beautiful game, decide that football is for the winter and not for the summer? Cricket.
“The month of June, which is the most beautiful month to play football, is hardly ever used except for the Euros and the World Cup. But the World Cup is played only every 12 years, more or less, in Europe.
“I fully share this view that you have to play in the best period for football; that is not June or July in Qatar. This is an issue that FIFA has to sort out.
“The sooner they do it, the better. The decision for 2022 was taken in 2010, so in 12 years you can organize yourself.” However, Football Association chairman David Bernstein condemned the proposals to move the 2022 tournament.
“My personal view is that it would be a case of a false prospectus if the 2022 World Cup in Qatar was switched to the winter,” Bernstein told Britain’s Press Association.
“It is a serious matter, bidding for the World Cup, and countries including ourselves (England) spent huge amounts of money bidding for the tournament.
“The bid was for the World Cup to be played in June and July and for it then to be moved to the winter would be fundamentally flawed. If people want it in the winter, they should bid for it on that basis.” He also took issue with Infantino’s remarks about football’s status as a winter sport.
“I personally believe that the domestic league season should remain more or less the way it is now, running from August to May,” he said.
“I think football is a winter game, that the public greatly enjoy their football through the winter and that we should think very carefully before we take football away from the public in the winter.”
