FIFA President Sepp Blatter expects his executive committee to decide soon that the 2022 World Cup in Qatar will be switched from summer.
Blatter told The Associated Press on Sunday that an Oct. 3-4 meeting in Zurich should approve the change, and begin consultation on the best time for Qatar to host the tournament.
''I would be very much surprised, more than surprised, if the ExCo will not accept the principle you cannot play in summer in Qatar,'' Blatter said in an interview on the sidelines of the annual charity football tournament in his home village. ''What will be following, this would be then decided later.'' ...
See the whole story here, courtesy of Fox Sports.
Kicking Back Comments: From even a neutral perspective (i.e. without regard to nationality), this is a joke as Qatar did not suddenly get really hot in summer. This leads me down the path of (a) FIFA is really, really dumb in not recognizing this fact, or (b) FIFA knew exactly this tournament was unsustainable in the summer and had designs to changes the dates all along to accommodate the bribes country that won the vote.
As a US national, this ticks me off as if this was really on the table, it should have been so up front for a level vote between Qatar and the US. Instead we get the FIFA ExCo strong-armed to vote in October in moving the World Cup. I have to believe it would have been a different result if everyone was honest upfront about what their intention was, or at least going in knowing a concession would need to be made for the heat.
Something tells me that the vote would have been very different had that been disclosed up front.
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