A Christmas World Cup?? As FIFA recommends November end/December date

Following a six-month consultation process, FIFA’s Task Force for the International Match Calendar 2018-24 held its third and final meeting today in Doha, identifying end-November/end-December as the most viable period for the 2022 FIFA World Cup™. The proposed event dates have the full support of all six Confederations. The proposal will be discussed at the next meeting of the FIFA Executive Committee, scheduled to take place at the Home of FIFA in Zurich on 19 and 20 March 2015.

The outcome of the discussions is also a proposed reduced competition days schedule with the exact dates to be defined inline with the match schedule and number of venues to be used for the 22nd edition of football’s flagship event. Furthermore, the task force, chaired by Asian Football Confederation (AFC) President and FIFA Executive Committee member Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, was exploring the option of staging the FIFA Confederations Cup 2021 in another AFC country during the traditional June/July window, while another FIFA competition – potentially the FIFA Club World Cup – could be relocated to Qatar to serve as the operational test event for Qatar in November/December 2021.

Various proposals for alternative dates to June/July for the 2022 FIFA World Cup were assessed at the three task force meetings by representatives of the football community at confederation, member association, league and club level as well as representatives of FIFPro, the ECA, the EPFL, the CEO of the 2022 FIFA World Cup™ Local Organising Committee, Hassan Al Thawadi and FIFA’s medical experts. The analysis aimed to find the most viable solution for all stakeholders, covering the likely and possible impacts of conditions on players, staff and fans, as well as the knock-on effect for domestic leagues. The representatives of the leagues once again emphasised the impact that a November/December tournament would have on their respective calendars.