A number of senior officials from the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) including their senior Medical Officer Michel D’Hooghe, are now recommending that the Qatar FIFA World Cup of 2022 must move to winter to protect the players and their fans.
He will tell delegates at the upcoming landmark FIFA meeting to decide on the date for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar that the risks to hundreds of players and thousands of supporters moving between venues in the extreme heat are too great.
The committee is now expected to agree in principle to move the World Cup to the winter, most likely in November/December 2022.
D’Hooghe’s strong report favouring a move to Qatar’s winter will have a significant impact.
“My position is very clear,” D’Hooghe said.
“From the medical point of view I think it will be better not to play during the hot Qatar summer months.”
On the back of recent comments from Sepp Blatter, the FIFA President and other FIFA World Cup delegates, the Football Federation of Australia (FFA) has mounted a legal challenge against FIFA to sue them for compensation.
The FFA have asked for $43 million, plus additional expenses incurred as part of Australia’s unsuccessful 2022 World Cup bid and for the loss of prestige and earnings as a result of FIFA’s decision.
The FFA’s bold move comes in the wake of FIFA officials manoeuvring to play the 2022 World Cup in Qatar during the winter months, to avoid the Arab state’s searing summer temperatures and to help cover up their misjudged decision to hand the 2022 tournament to Qatar.
Australia’s bid was predicated on the tournament being played during the European summer, as per tradition, to avoid clash with lucrative club competitions.
The FFA have asked FIFA to make an “in-principle” decision that “just and fair” compensation should be paid to those nations that invested many millions, and national prestige, in bidding for a summer event only to now be told that the tournament will be played in the northern winter.
Australia’s football governing body has also suggested that, should FIFA shift the tournament to Qatar’s winter, “a transparent process should be established to examine the scheduling implications for all leagues and a method developed for agreeing appropriate compensation for those affected.”
Australia and the A-League will not be the only ones impacted.
FIFA can now also expect a long list of legal claims from the hundreds of professional football leagues around the world that will have their main income and showpiece competitions interrupted or even cancelled for the sake of the FIFA tournament.
“Australia invested heavily in the World Cup process and the entire nation was behind the bid,” Lowy said.
“But now, with increasing speculation about a change that will impact on us as one of the bidding nations, and because our competition will be affected, we have made our position public.
“Our season takes place during the Australian summer to avoid a clash with other local football codes, a move that was necessary because the A-League simply could not get access to the high standard stadiums required as they were being used by other codes during the Australian winter.
“If the World Cup were to be staged in the middle of our A-League season it would impact on our competition, not just for 2022, but for the seasons leading up to and beyond that date.
“Clubs, investors, broadcasters, players and fans would all be affected.
“FIFA has an opportunity now to make the best of a bad situation by embarking on a transparent and orderly approach, unlike the process that led to the original flawed decision in December 2010.
“”IFA champions the notion of ‘Fair Play’ and that principle should apply to the decisions it makes in the coming months.”
The FFA and other football federations, in their correspondences with Blatter, have made thinly veiled comments about the way that the winning 2022 FIFA World Cup hosts were decided.
The necessity to have to move it to the other side of the northern calendar, only goes to reinforce those suspicions.
Lowy and the FFA are hoping that they will at least get something out of the FIFA 2022 World Cup tournament after all.
Avon River
Guest
#Justin As per others your $1.2 billion is fanciful as no number was ever put on it. An MOU was signed off brokered by Fed Govt and ensured the right to seek compensation. For a fair period of he public debatecompensation was thought to be sufficiently covered via possible stadia upgrades and works but as has been seen is without the bid most of these projects are happening or already completed. Re Etihad. The AFL right from the time the intent to bid was launched made it clear that they would support (yes of course all codes would say that) but would retain Etihad. However suddenly in Oct 2009 we saw theFFA showing FIFA officials around inc Etihad and featuring the venue in their promo video. So at thatvpoijt the fight had been picked. Rhetoric flew both ways. Demetriou states that should BOTH the MCG and Etihad be lost for too lng then the season might be in jeopardy and that worst case got presented by scare mongerers in the media as the only case. The NRL too spoke of an unacceptable proposition and that clubs might be at risk. The FFA spoke of Vic missing out which was baloney. The MCG was never off the table and Geelong was offered and Frank coukd've agitated for AAMI Park to be extended and to provide the rectangle codes with a real legacy but for whatever reason perhaps known only to those at FFA HQ the battle for Etihad became central. That's a shame because as mentioned the AFL had agreed to release all other required stadia and yet this seems to be ignored both then and now. The other frustration was the FFA I guess were sticking to the protocols and therefore weren't pushing FIFA for clarification as to whether AFL & NRL would be permitted in host cities during the month of the tournament. This was detail that FIFA only deal with after awarding the rights and FIFA don't flex so it would certainly be Aust winter and no discussion added to that. Well. Fifa can flex!! But gee - a lot of Euro comps take a mid winter break anyway so no big deal!
Australian Rules
Guest
Right you are apaway, SCG was not in the official bid. My mistake. But the other 5 were.
apaway
Roar Guru
AR I don't think the SCG was ever considered as a stadium option in Australia's bid.
apaway
Roar Guru
Jukes The bid was far from embarrassing. The bid was well-researched, well-prepared, and relied on 80% of stadia that already exist. The bid had some tough hurdles to overcome, especially the war with the AFL over ground usage, which would not have existed has Australia known they could bid for a WC played in Jan/Feb. The video was not the reason the Australian bid was knocked bag, it was the number of full-looking brown paper bags changing hands.
Australian Rules
Guest
Who's talking about "starting a code war" Justin..? And what does that have to do with anything? We're talking about the facts - what *actually* happened - in relation to our WC Bid. You have repeatedly posted information which is categorically untrue. You should admit as much.
apaway
Roar Guru
King Kong Our bid WAS excellent, the FIFA Inspection teams judged it thus in the lead-up to the host announcement. Qatar's bid was LAST in the Inspection team's judgement.
apaway
Roar Guru
Bob One of the issues in this whole farce is that FIFA's proposal to move the World Cup to January would have been ideal for Australia's bid. Think about it: the biggest sticking point was ground availability, specifically the MCG. If Australia's bid could have been designed around playing the tournament in our summer, say end of January to end of February, there would have been no clash with the AFL. Yes, there would be potential disruption to cricket, but not nearly as much. It is this that makes a lot of football followers angry. Fair-minded fans can see the need for the AFL to ensure their competition is not unduly disrupted, although the amount of compensation sought was pretty over the top, as was Demetriou's comment that they would have to "cancel the season."
Magnus
Guest
I'll walk naked at the A league Grand Final if it succeeds. FIFA aren't stupid...
Magnus
Guest
Thanks
Magnus
Guest
If you believe everything Jennings writes you are deficient. Lowy is trying to divert attention from the Bribery scandal in Victoria
Justin Thighm
Roar Guru
You might be right there, maybe a boycott will bring this to a head.
Marcel
Guest
Can someone also sue Baz Luhrman for the 40million spent on promoting that awful movie of his.
Marcel
Guest
Giving a couple of cricket grounds a coat of paint was hardly an excellent bid...now if the a-league clubs had all ended up with their own grounds as a legacy of the cup...that would have been excellent!
Stevo
Guest
I think this play by FFA has some legs. Article in The Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/sep/17/fifa-australia-world-cup-2022 "Blatter said last week that "the loudest critics" were "the ones who should know better because they signed the exact same bidding documents as Qatar did", underlining that the June-July schedule was only "in principle". He added: "It does not say that it 'must' take place in those months, nor is it a 'conditio sine qua non' [a prerequisite] to host the World Cup in June and July. What the document does is express Fifa's wish to host the World Cup in June or July." However, it has since emerged that the words "in principle" did not in fact appear in the bidding documents." So Sepp doing his usual and blabbing on at the rate of knots but maybe he has it wrong this time. Interesting times ahead.
Sports Candy
Roar Pro
There is no honour among thieves. We should never have bid in the first place and pulled out of the running when fat Africans with cheap suits, halitosis and syphilis start asking us for money in brown paper bags for them to vote for us - and then they don't vote for us anyway. Decent English speaking countries should pull their teams out out of every FIFA tournament until Blatter resigns and FIFA cleans up its act. They must re-run the 2022 ballott without Blatter and administered by an independent accounting firm.
Justin Thighm
Roar Guru
He has always worked for the AFl, even when he was CEO of FFA :) (This is a joke)
Justin Thighm
Roar Guru
Sports experts and sports lawyers around the world actually think this has a good chance to succeed and will even bring down Sepp Blatter http://www.foxsports.com.au/football/ffa-compensation-claim-could-bring-down-fifa-president-sepp-blatter-says-critic-andrew-jennings/story-e6frf423-1226721603404#.UjmUOsbI3qA
Justin Thighm
Roar Guru
We are getting off topic a bit, but I think it was bob who suggested that it was OK for the AFL to ask for compensation but not the FFA or the EPL, so they started the code war, not me.
Justin Thighm
Roar Guru
Thanks Jukes. Well put.
Australian Rules
Guest
Executive Director of Sport for Foxtel.