FIFA President Gianni Infantino Confirms 2022 World Cup To Be Held In Winter

Pack your wooly hats, kagools and big knits because the World Cup is going to be held in the winter in four years time in Qatar and that means it'll be bitterly cold...well maybe not.

It wasn't exactly the most popular decision to hold this year's World Cup in Russia, after all football really could have come home with England bidding for the 2018 tournament, but it's actually been very successful.

Now thoughts turn to Qatar in four years and that decision was even less popular. As well as claims of bribery there's also been the deaths of migrant workers building stadiums and fears over the weather and how much anyone in the country actually cares about it.

FIFA are hoping to solve one of the problems, and no, sadly it isn't to do with the migrant workers dying, by moving the time of year of the tournament.

We're used to World Cups taking place in June or July, give us something to do whilst the league season is taking a breaking, but this time it'll be in the run up to Christmas.

It means leagues will have to break for several weeks before the tournament to allow national teams to have time with their players in the build up to the tournament and for several weeks after in order to give them a break.

For a lot of leagues the break after the final won't be too much of a problem, as many have winter breaks over Christmas, the Premier League will suffer though.

The English leagues usually have their busiest spell around Christmas but that would start around a week after the end of the finals, after England have won of course (wonder how many will bite on that).

Fifa vice-president Jim Boyce discussed the possibility of a winter tournament in 2015 saying, "I think it could be a tremendous World Cup because I think players will be fresher than they have ever been. It's going to be 28 days, it's not a lifetime. It means [domestic leagues] starting three weeks earlier and finishing three weeks later for one year."

Qatar's weather still averages around 20 degrees celsius in November so maybe it's not a good time for the knits...

Topics: Football News, FIFA, World Cup news, Qatar 2022, World Cup

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a writer for SPORTbible. He covers all sport from football, formula one, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics, mma and wrestling. He obviously hates YOUR football team and has no interest in synchronised swimming.

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