World Cup 2022: Fifa on the defensive over calendar changes
Fifa has been forced onto the defensive over its plans for the international fixture calendar following reports that Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini have begun work on a new calendar that would see European club football played between March and October to accommodate international qualifying matches and finals tournaments in winter.
Grand designs: a general view of the proposed new Doha Port Stadium in Doha Photo: EPA
By Paul Kelso 1:40PM GMT 20 Jan 2011
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According to German newspaper Bild the proposed changes prompted by potential of a winter World Cup in Qatar in 2022, would create two windows in the winter for international qualifiers and European Championships or World Cup tournaments.
The schedule, which echoes that prepared by Platini in 1998 when he acted as Blatter’s adviser, would see club football played from March to October, with all euro or World Cup qualifying matches played as mini-tournaments in November and December, and the final tournaments in January and February.
The newspaper said that the new schedule could be introduced as early as 2015, though this would raise an obvious question about the viability of playing the 2018 World Cup in a Russian winter. Bild said Platini and Blatter had hoped to keep it under wraps until after both men had been re-elected as president of Uefa and Fifa respectively.
The proposal, designed to boost the status and quality of the international game and ensure players were not fatigued, would see football trespass on territory reserved for traditional summer sports, as well as summer and winter Olympics.
In response to the story Fifa did not deny that calendar issues were being considered, but said it had "no concrete plans" to make the changes. In a statement released to the Daily Telegraph Fifa said: “At this stage there are no concrete plans to change the international match calendar.
“Any potential move of the 2022 FIFA World Cup from a summer to a winter period would have to be initiated by the football association of Qatar and would have to be presented to the FIFA Executive Committee.”
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Telegraph.co.uk
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