The heads of Europe’s leading clubs and leagues, including
Premier League CEO Richard Scudamore, "will make a last-ditch
stand this week to prevent the 2022 Qatar World Cup being switched to
November and December, causing untold damage to the global calendar and
potentially throwing television scheduling into chaos," according to Andrew Warshaw of the London INDEPENDENT. On the heels of the record-breaking deal struck for Premier
League rights, "a break of up to seven weeks in club games could have a
seriously detrimental impact on negotiations for the next round of TV
deals across Europe." And then "there is the damage it would do to
relations with fans -- and whether staff employed by clubs, already on
low-paid contracts, would be paid for those weeks when there would be no
club games." The European Club Association, representing
some 200 clubs, and European Professional Football Leagues, "will travel to Doha to attend the final meeting" of the FIFA
2022 Task Force -- set up to consult with stakeholders over the best time
to play the tournament in Qatar after summer was ruled out because of
the excessive heat. There they "will hold showdown
talks with the rest of the Task Force who are all in favour of a
November-December tournament, and insist that winter is unworkable and
push for their joint proposal of May 5-June 4." Joint Chair of the Task Force, Asian
football chief Sheikh Salman Ebrahim bin Khalifa, said that winter is now a “done
deal,” with November-December in "pole position" after an alternative of
December-January was apparently ruled out because of a "potential clash
with the Winter Olympics." The ECA/EPFL proposal states, “The May option is the best alternative
to the traditional June-July timing, since it retains the logical
calendar order and avoids compressing such an important competition as
the World Cup in the middle of the traditional and busy club football
season.” Another complication "is that one reason the 2018 and 2022 World Cup ballots were staged
simultaneously was to allow broadcasters to tie up rights for both." American
broadcaster Fox, which paid a record amount on the assumption both
tournaments would be held in summer, "has voiced concern that a switch to
winter would clash with its coverage of other sports." Harold Mayne-Nicholls, who headed the
FIFA technical inspection team that assessed conditions in all the
bidding countries for 2018 and 2022, said that November-December "would have a
catastrophic global impact, not least for the fans." Mayne-Nicholls: "You would
have to stop more or less 50 leagues all over the world if the World Cup
moves to November-December. In my opinion that’s very dangerous. It would cause untold
confusion and mean several weeks without any income for the clubs" (INDEPENDENT, 2/21).
