The Catarrh World Cup?

So after awarding the 2022 World's Cup of Soccer to Qatar because they offered the best bribes, FIFA have now decided to acknowledge what everybody else has been saying all along: 

You can't play tournament football in the desert in 130 degree temperatures.

No shit Sherlock.....

They're now recommending that the tournament be staged in November and December:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31587649

How's that going to work?

Everybody in Europe plays between August and April, so that's slap bang in the middle of our season.

Is this going to have a knock on effect on the 2021/22 and 2022/23 seasons?

Will it give an unfair advantage to those countries whose domestic season is played during our summer? (If there are any, can't be arsed looking.)

Will it affect the Champions' League? (There are currently three rounds of games played in Nov / Dec.)

Does anybody care?

In my view, the whole thing has been a farce and they should never have been awarded the tournament in the first place.

FIFA is a corrupt organisation and this is simply more proof that the people running the most popular game on the planet are a bunch of bent chancers and it's time something was done.

Thoughts?

They have a superb sporting infrastructure and it's long overdue to be hosted by an Arab State, especially in these times of rampant Islamophobia so the world need to chill out and let them organise it. They have air-conditioned stadia and they were brilliant in the 70s when I used to play in them so they must be amazing by now, but if the western media want to continue to express their racism by slagging off the organisation (as they have with every world cup organised anywhere apart from the UK it seems) let them get on with it. Brazil was a joke until it started.
FIFA are bent as a nine bob note and whoever wins the right to host the WC will have had to pay for the privilege.

I'm renaming you "Lusty of Arabia".

Stay off that motorbike.......

I just can't see how this is workable. All this should have been thought about before awarding the tournament. It was awarded on the understanding it would be a summer tournament and the Africa cup of nations is in the following January. How can the whole structure of European football be changed just to suit one country so they can host the cup. Doesn't make sense to me.

Bwfc1958 wrote:How can the whole structure of European football be changed just to suit one country so they can host the cup. Doesn't make sense to me.

Me neither. I can only assume an awful lot of palms were greased before the decision was made.

Islamaphobia. Good grief.

There's no reason to postpone all football. The last world cup for example, how many players would be missing out the Championship. We had CYL and he pissed off for a month in January anyway. The top divisions obviously would have to take a break.

wanderlust wrote:They have a superb sporting infrastructure and it's long overdue to be hosted by an Arab State, especially in these times of rampant Islamophobia so the world need to chill out and let them organise it. They have air-conditioned stadia and they were brilliant in the 70s when I used to play in them so they must be amazing by now, but if the western media want to continue to express their racism by slagging off the organisation (as they have with every world cup organised anywhere apart from the UK it seems) let them get on with it. Brazil was a joke until it started.
FIFA are bent as a nine bob note and whoever wins the right to host the WC will have had to pay for the privilege.

The fact it's having to be held in winter will have a massive effect on leagues around the world who will have to reschedule their seasons to fit and hence disrupt sponsorship, broadcasting contracts etc. 

But I could excuse this and get on with it for the reasons you post above if there wasn't the clear, unabated human rights offences caused by the Kafala system. It's a long standing thing in the Middle East which we can't do anything about unfortunately, but we shouldn't be supporting it by giving them tournaments like this which legacies are supposed to enrich a country not cause more suffering - I'd include Brazil in that too.

Are the air conditioning stadiums happening? I heard they weren't?

bwfc1874 wrote: 

But I could excuse this and get on with it for the reasons you post above if there wasn't the clear, unabated human rights offences caused by the Kafala system. It's a long standing thing in the Middle East which we can't do anything about unfortunately, but we shouldn't be supporting it by giving them tournaments like this which legacies are supposed to enrich a country not cause more suffering - I'd include Brazil in that too.

I totally agree. Turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in pursuit of a tidy profit totally sends out the wrong message.

I don't think I can remember the last World Cup - or Olympics for that matter - where the British press didn't make a stink about corruption, ill-preparedness or some other (usually political) reason as to why Johnny Foreigner isn't responsible or capable enough to run the show.
And the assumption is that the West controls football which is easy enough to understand given the fact that the WC has been consistently and disproportionately awarded to Western countries.

The power has shifted now on the back of foreign ownership of major Western clubs and rightly, I feel, they want something approaching equality starting with an Arab country hosting the WC for the first time in history.

Most countries take a winter break and the anticipated disruption will probably only affect the Premiership - who seem to be trying to hold the rest of the world to ransome.

The proposal to move the WC to winter was not the Qataris idea - it was FIFAs as far as I understand it. The Qataris have done everything within reason to deal with the issues raised and now - 4 years down the road - something else is being thrown at them to undermine trust.

FIFA and the Premiership need to man up and just get on with it. Having to reschedule a few games is no hardship when there is the potential to give young disaffected Muslims throughout the world the opportunity to identify with a positive and peaceful occasion rather than the incessant conflict-based diet they are currently fed by the media.

The irony of this is that the Arabs and Asians fund football in this country and yet we are unwilling to let them take the limelight for a short time.

The Kafala issue isn't just coming up 4 years later, and it isn't an issue they've made any real effort to address Lust. I see your points and i think you're right in many ways but if Fifa really cared about the 'legacy' they bang on about then they wouldn't have given them the World Cup. Supporting what is effectively slavery is something they were well aware would happen but clearly didn't give a shit about.

Fucking "legacy my arse", as we've had confirmed by events in Zurich earlier today.