Alhaji Righteous De Ambitious: Dec 23, 2010

Thursday, December 23, 2010

World Cup 2010 Blog: Players Want A Winter World Cup In 2022

Players Want A Winter World Cup In 2022

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 07:41 AM PST

soccersnow Of absolutely no surprise to anyone is the declaration by FIFPro that the players union, and thus the players, want a winter World Cup in Qatar in 2022, so as to do away with that pesky ‘Was that a dive or did he just have a heat stroke in the box?’ issue due to arise in Qatar’s July.

Of course they’re speaking for players who will have no part to play in 2022 since they’ll have graciously retired by then.

Oh, and David Beckham.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. Romelu Lukaku, for example, will be smack dab in the middle of his prime – and he already starts for Belgium.

Tijs Tummers, secretary of FIFPro’s technical committee, said: “We will have to take a careful look at the international match calendar, but FIFPro does not foresee any insurmountable problems in this regard.

“Space will have to be made for the tournament, even though many countries already have a winter break.

“In Europe, competitive matches will have to be played in August and the second half of May and the first half of June. If you look at what happened last weekend with weather problems in Europe because of heavy snowfall, you could see this as an advantage rather than as a problem.

“And it might perhaps turn out that the players will be fitter at the start of a winter World Cup than was the case last summer at the World Cup in South Africa.”

This space is less announcement than charting the transition of ‘possibility’ to ‘inevitability’. Everyone, most importantly those with power, seems to want this winter World Cup.

And what powerful decision-makers want, powerful decision-makers get. See: Everything FIFA does.