The prospect of a winter World Cup being staged in Qatar in
2022 moved a significant step closer on Thursday when Uefa's 54-member
countries gave their overall backing to the controversial switch which would
result in a radical overhaul of the football calendar. According to Jim
Boyce, Britain's Fifa vice-president, Uefa members consider it
"impossible" to play in the searing heat of a Qatari summer.
Fifa is expected to agree
in principle next month that the tournament will not be held in its regular
summer slot and the decision of Uefa, the Europeans are the strongest of the
global confederations makes a change ever more likely, even if the continent's
major clubs and leagues remain opposed European countries have given their
overall backing to moving the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to the winter, Britain's
Fifa Vice-president has said. Fifa's executive committee is now expected to
agree in principle to move the World cup to the winter at its meeting in Zurich
on 3 October.
"But what the 54 countries do not want
Fifa to do is to make a decision yet on exactly when in the year it is going to
be played. There are still nine years to go and people feel Fifa should sit
down with all the major stakeholders and come up with a solution that would
cause the minimum disruption to football. There is plenty of time to do
that in my opinion, and hopefully football will be thee winner.
There could well be disagreements in the future, however, over
whether it is played in January 2022 or November/December of that year.
Fifa maintain that there is no prospect of the tournament
being taken away from Qatar. Earlier this year it set up what is claimed to be
an independent commission investigating the awarding of the finals to Qatar
amid allegations of impropriety and vote swapping, the 2018 and 2022 hosts were
chosen at the same time. But a change of Venue remains off the agenda. The mood
of the metting was very much supportive of pulling it forward to the beginning
of 2022, said Stewart Regan, the SFA's Chief executive. He added that member
countries would "have discussions with their respective league
bodies."