Borussia Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke said that FIFA President Gianni Infantino's proposal for a bigger World Cup "is complete insanity, putting more pressure on already stretched players and risking damage to the sport's showcase event," according to Karolos Grohmann of REUTERS. Infantino proposed this month increasing the World Cup to 48 teams up from the current 32. A decision will be taken in January, "but FIFA is discussing it this week." Watzke: "I am totally against it. It is complete insanity. The World Cup is the biggest thing in football and should not be played around with." He said that players "were already playing too many games, in several competitions simultaneously." Watzke added, "Players are already permanently stretched too thin. For FIFA this may not be important at all but we as a club have to go against it. What will happen next? The next FIFA president proposes 84 clubs? Look at the huge gaps in the qualifiers that already exist. The qualifiers are at times so boring that any thought of a bigger World Cup is crazy" (REUTERS, 10/13).
EIGHT VENUES: ALBAWABA reported local organizers said that Qatar plans to "stage the 2022 World Cup in eight stadiums, pending final approval" by FIFA. Organizers said that six of the eight arenas are to be completed by '19, starting with Doha's Khalifa stadium to be inaugurated in early '17. No "overall figures were released but construction costs were given" at between $150M and $800M (ALBAWABA, 10/13).
RUSSIA NAMES AMBASSADOR: INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL reported Russia 2018 organizers have named Nikita Simonyan as a World Cup ambassador. Simonyan, who celebrated his 90th birthday on Wednesday, "holds a special place in Russian football." He was part of the USSR squad that won the Gold Medal at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne -- a time when Russians "used to be welcomed at the Olympics." Two years later he captained the national team at its first World Cup in Sweden in '58. He later went on to coach the USSR team (INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL, 10/13).
