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The heat will rise with a winter move for the FIFA World Cup

Roar Guru
25th February, 2015
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Sepp Blatter has been banned from all soccer related activities for eight years.
Roar Guru
25th February, 2015
1

With the 2022 Qatar World Cup seemingly all but assured of being moved from mid year to November-December, it’s going to be interesting to see if there will be a long-term impact on the governance of the sport.

FIFA controls the sport worldwide and believe that anything they say goes, including changing local laws during World Cups to suit their own ends.

On the other hand, the national federations run the sport day to day, and while the money FIFA rakes in from their premier event is substantial, it doesn’t match the untold billions funding the numerous professional leagues and clubs.

The entire process of awarding the cup to Qatar, and Russia as well for that matter, has been roundly criticised from the second the winning bids were announced, and certainly doesn’t need to be rehashed here.

The bad blood generated by those decisions, though, is only going to serve to fuel the outrage in every country and club where competition schedules are going to need to be adjusted to compensate for the change in timing.

Not only will leagues need to adjust for as many days as FIFA eventually chose to play over, but players will need to be given at least a couple of extra weeks prior for national team training camps. That means at least a six-week break. Such a gap means that it’s likely seasons either side of the event will also need to be adjusted to compensate.

It is not just a matter of when the event is staged though, the impact is far wider reaching than just rescheduling games, both for clubs and FIFA.

The world’s best players have historically struggled with form after the rigours of the World Cup, even with a break between the tournament itself and the start of their competitions. Can players cope with the emotional high of the World Cup one week, and then play well for their club a couple of days later? Will their clubs be happy with that scenario?

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Since inception, the World Cup has been the focal point of the sport. Will the gloss of that event be lessened when it has to compete with regular week to week football? The time leading up to the tournament and savouring the highlights after the competition finishes adds to the mystique of the event. Now there will be no time to focus solely on the World Cup to help the anticipation to build, and the thrill of the final will be quickly lost when fans need to instantly switch their focus back to club fixtures.

There are any number of other such unforeseen issues likely to raise their head with the proposed switch.

FIFA might like to deny it, but this decision will impact on the bottom line for most of the world’s professional football organisations. How then will the federations, leagues and clubs react to such a unilateral FIFA decision?

And let’s not forget, the World Cup decision is only one of a growing list of FIFA acts that have damaged its credibility. Corruption scandals and any number of other minor issues have brought FIFA’s overreaching management of the sport more and more into question.

Will the inevitable power struggle that ensues from this decision further entrench FIFA as the dominant body of the sport, or will it act as the straw that finally undermines FIFA’s control and authority?

There is a lot more at stake here than just a change in dates.

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