FIFA recommends winter World Cup for Qatar

A FIFA task force has recommended playing the 2022 Qatar World Cup in November-December.

The task force aimed to find the most viable solution for all stakeholders, covering impacts of conditions on players, staff and fans, football’s governing body said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Given that the two bidding cities for the 2022 Winter Olympics … pledged recently to host the winter games from 4 to 20 February 2022; that the month of Ramadan begins on 2 April in 2022; and that consistently hot conditions prevail from May to September in Qatar, the only remaining effective option is the November/December window,” FIFA said.

FIFA added that the proposed event dates have the full support of all six Confederations and will be discussed at the next meeting of the FIFA Executive Committee in March.

Asian Football Confederation President and FIFA Executive Committee member Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa said finding appropriate dates had been a “challenging task”.

“We are very pleased that, after careful consideration of the various opinions and detailed discussions with all stakeholders, we have identified what we believe to be the best solution,” he said.