Winter Wonder World Cup?
Very shortly after the controversial decision (in the English-speaking world, at least) to award Qatar the right to host the 2022 World Cup, FIFA's human face Sepp Blatter announced he would support a winter World Cup. Whether this is likely to happen can be only conjecture at the moment, as the tournament is a solid 11 years away.
Yet Sepp isn't the only one behind the change: so is the players' union. Unlike Mr. Blatter, the players' union listed their reasons for wanting the World Cup in winter quite trenchantly: "It is not sensible to award a World Cup in the summer to a country with an average temperature of 41C in June and July, a midday temperature of 50C and above all, extremely high humidity."
Of course, FIFA knew all of this going into the vote, so what does this very sudden change (or at least, the indication that FIFA is open to the change), less than a month after the voting, mean?
Perhaps FIFA did not expect the reaction it received, and wanted to go for another feel-good World Cup story, another "first World Cup" story to excite an entire region. And, after South Africa showed to the world that going to a rumored backup plan (Germany again, same stadia, reliable hosts and all those other Teutonic stereotypes, etc.) was not necessary, perhaps FIFA thought it would do some more doom-and-gloom dispelling by way of having a World Cup in the Middle East.
If we can read this potential about-face as FIFA admitting to an error in planning, then we can probably confirm that FIFA was a little stunned by the reaction. Why? Mainly because this change of dates is as close as FIFA ever comes to admitting fault. A change of location would be an outright humiliation to both FIFA and Qatar, but this winter World C! up propo sal strikes me as a rare compromise. A way of FIFA saying to the paying football fans, "We recognize that you like to be outside during daylight hours in the summer. Sorry. We know you don't want to worry about getting heatstroke when you're on vacation. We'll try and sort this out with minimal embarrassment to all parties involved."
That's not to say that I love the idea of the winter World Cup. I recognize that it would effectively split the 2021-22 competitions (the domestic leagues and cups, the Champions League, etc.) in half, giving the whole season a very uneven feeling. Additionally, it would lengthen the already long domestic campaign, and would surely return many players back to Europe with some pretty bad injuries. There is plenty to dislike, especially from the perspectives of the top clubs.
But I also recognize the importance of the World Cup. Assuming that Qatar will be the host nation, I cannot see a summer event being superior to a winter one. Personally I would not like to spend an extended period of time in a country where one must be indoors, heavily treated by airconditioning during all hours of the day. I doubt other fans will be more excited about traveling to Qatar in the summer than they would be in the winter. And this is just considering the fans; imagine, as Sepp Blatter has us do, the footballers who are expected to run and entertain for 90+ minutes.
In the winter the temperatures will be more suitable for natural outdoor activity, and the Qatari government will not have to air-condition all the locations in the country that will be used by footballers/tourists from the possible 50 degrees to the Qatari government's proposed 27 degrees.
Ignoring the heat, the proposed stadia look wonderful (in the promotional videos, for some reason they're quite keen to let you know that, as a fan, you can arrive by water taxi). The hosts seem eager to comply with FIFA, who are continuously on the lookout for compliant nations to host the spectacle.
So! what's not to like? In a vacuum, the idea of the winter tournament in Qatar is just better than one in the summer. But we are not in a vacuum, and the European season will be cut in half. No doubt the clubs will fight the date change very strongly for this exact reason. But if the choice is between a botched domestic and European campaign, and a thoroughly air-conditioned World Cup, I prefer to the former simply because the World Cup is the more prestigiouscompetition.
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