Influential football figures "have backed proposals that could see the Qatar 2022 World Cup clash with the Winter Olympics," according to Richard Conway of the BBC. Talks at FIFA headquarters in Zurich "resulted in support for a tournament held in either January and February or November and December." No decision was taken and, in theory, "all options remain open." FIFA "is adamant the tournament cannot take place in June and July because of extreme temperatures in Qatar." The month of May "could be a compromise, with European clubs and leagues in favour of this particular option, but no clear solution is yet in sight." FIFA President Sepp Blatter and IOC President Thomas Bach "had previously agreed the World Cup and Winter Olympics would not clash." However, FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke said that the first two months of '22 -- when a Winter Games could take place -- "was one of two most likely dates for the World Cup." In a statement Valcke said, "We are getting closer to narrowing the dates for the Fifa World Cup to two options -- January/February 2022 or November/December 2022 -- but Fifa has also been asked to consider May 2022." In response, the IOC said it was in the interest of FIFA and the IOC that "there is no clash between our calendars" and added, "We have received assurances from President Blatter that this will not be the case." No date has yet been set for the Winter Olympics, "which will be held in either the Kazakh city of Almaty or the Chinese capital Beijing," but the 2014 Sochi Games ran from Feb. 7-23 (BBC, 11/3). BUSINESS INSIDER's Tony Manfred wrote moving the tournament from summer to winter "will be damaging for domestic leagues, players, TV broadcasters, and maybe even the 2022 Olympics." In its '10 bid proposal, Qatar "promised to hold the tournament in June/July with the help of revolutionary stadium-cooling technology." Those cooling technologies "remain untested or nonexistent with eight years to go until the tournament." And now "any hope of a summer World Cup is dead" for the simple reason that you cannot "hold a football tournament in 120-degree heat" (BUSINESS INSIDER, 11/3).
FIFA APOLOGIZES: REUTERS reported FIFA has apologized to Ukraine for an error during last week's presentation of the 2018 World Cup logo in Moscow "which showed the Crimean peninsula as a part of the Russian Federation." The incident "added tension to relations between the countries after Ukraine's Crimea peninsula was annexed by Russia in March, sparking the ongoing military conflict between Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed separatists." The Football Federation of Ukraine "published a letter of apology from FIFA on its official website." FIFA said, "Reference is made to the unfortunate incident which happened during the official emblem launch for the 2018 World Cup in Moscow, Russia. ... Unfortunately, a map of Russia, showing the Ukrainian region of Crimea as part of Russia, was selected and used during the projection by the local service provider which escaped FIFA’s attention when uploading the video footage on our website and YouTube channel. Once this unfortunate incident was brought to our attention we immediately removed the short sequence in question" (REUTERS, 11/4).
