From the moment Sepp Blatter opened his little envelope to reveal that Qatar would host the 2022 World Cup, there was one certain outcome: chaos would ensue. Convention would inevitably be torn to shreds, tradition ripped up, common sense dispensed with.
But on Wednesday the full scale of the chaos became clear. Fifa’s internal scrutiny committee has come to the decision that the Qatar World Cup will be scheduled in November and December 2022, with the final to be played the day before Christmas Eve.
Short of deciding to hold the Winter Olympics in June, thus transforming the ski jump into a competitive splashdown, it is hard to think of a move more disruptive to the long-established rhythms not just of football but of sport as a whole.
It seems futile pointing this out, but the fact is that the criteria under which the nations bid to host the competition were precise and clear. The words “the World Cup will take place in June and July 2022” were printed across the first page of the terms and conditions.
There was a reason for that stricture: it has to do so in order to fit into the football calendar, a highly calibrated mechanism that has been arrived at by years of trial, error and negotiation, a schedule that makes the average school timetable look straightforward.
When the technical report on the various bid documents was put together by Fifa’s internal bureaucracy, it was made clear that playing outdoor sport in a country where summer temperatures top 50 degrees was maybe not the brightest of ideas. Frankly, lives would be endangered.
Yet, for reasons entirely to do with spreading the world game into new territories and absolutely nothing to do with buffing up their personal current accounts, members of Fifa’s selection committee decided that Qatar would be the perfect place.
Surprised when it was pointed out that maybe a host nation where international footballers were in danger of being barbecued the moment they stepped on to the pitch was not the best idea they had ever had, instead of gifting it to a more appropriate territory, Fifa decided the best course of action was to change the dates.
Already Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the Premier League, has expressed his displeasure. Those in charge of the German, Italian and Spanish leagues are no less unhappy. And no wonder. November and December is the time of year Scudamore’s member clubs are at full throttle in their own highly lucrative competition.
It will be no minor rearrangement involved to accommodate Fifa’s big idea. Scudamore has just signed the most lucrative broadcasting deal in British sporting history. It is a deal predicated on matches being available when the broadcasters want them. Sky did not pay northwards of £5 billion (Dh28.4 billion) for the rights to show games in order to have nothing to offer subscribers for two whole months. Which, with the World Cup available solely on terrestrial television, is what will happen in 2022. They will be rapidly seeking some sort of recompense.
The Premier League, like all the other domestic competitions across Europe — including the lower divisions in England, which have to harmonise their schedule — will be obliged to take a three-month break (two months for the tournament plus one for players to prepare with their international squads) and extend the season beyond its usual May conclusion into June, July and August. When it will run into the start of the next season.
In short, it will take two, three perhaps even four years to return to the normal rhythm. Except, of course, English football might discover it rather likes the summer.
Fans might come to appreciate watching games in shirt sleeves rather than thermals. In truth, there is no reason why football is a winter game in the UK beyond historical convention. Many a football club — Aston Villa for instance — began life when members of a cricket team decided they needed something to do in the cooler months.
For generations, we have stuck to the assumption that it is a game played on mud rather than turf. But there is no meteorological objection to it being played in the summer. Warmer temperatures would mean warmer muscles and possibly better performance.
It is hard to argue that, if the 2022 switch was found actually to have worked, the football authorities would not cheerfully change the game to the summer. Tradition and convention were long ago eroded by the needs of television paymasters.
If Blatter can juggle his arrangements with so little consideration of the consequences solely to suit his own purposes, why not the rest of the football world?
But imagine for a moment the change that would bring to our sporting landscape. Obliged suddenly to compete with football for attention and cash, sports which require fine weather like cricket, tennis, athletics and golf would wither and pine. Rugby league, which switched to the summer in an attempt to escape the pervasive grip of football, would have to switch back. Rugby union would become our principle winter pursuit. Well, that and the World Cup, held every fourth November and December.
It may seem an absurd suggestion. Yet this week, football’s highest authority has proved that nothing is sacrosanct in the game they administer, nothing is without a price.
Of this we can be certain: if those in charge of English football discover that, after reluctantly moving to suit Mr Blatter, they can make more money out of playing in the summer, if they can deliver the audiences to their television bosses, they will play in the summer. Because, as Fifa demonstrated, that is how modern football works.
— The Daily Telegraph
