FA chief: Summer World Cup in Qatar 'impossible'

Andy Sambidge, August 11th, 2013

The new chairman of the Football Association in England has claimed that hosting a summer World Cup in Qatar in 2022 would be "impossible".
Greg Dyke, who took up his FA role last month, said he believes the tournament is likely to move to winter because of the heat.
Despite Qatar's World Cup organising committee saying it is ready to host the tournament in summer, Dyke said in comments publised by the BBC: "Even if all the stadia are air-conditioned, I think it will be impossible for the fans.
"I think football is a winter game, that the public greatly enjoy their football through the winter and that we should think very carefully before we take football away from the public in the winter."
He added: "My position, and I suspect the FA's position, will be: 'You can't play it in the summer.'"
The Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee told BBC Sport in a statement: "It was the right decision to award the World Cup to the Middle East for the first time in 2022.
"We are ready to host in summer or winter. We have always maintained that this issue requires the agreement of the international football community.
"A decision to alter the dates of the 2022 Fifa World Cup would not affect our infrastructure planning."
Dyke, who has visited Qatar in June, said: "FIFA have therefore got two choices. They can move it either time-wise or to another location. I suspect either will end up in some sort of litigation. But then someone should have worked that out in 2010 when it was awarded."
Last month, Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore said that if the World Cup in Qatar in 2022 cannot be held in the summer, it should be moved to another country.
Speaking at the Premier League Asian Trophy in Hong Kong, and quoted in Monday's British newspapers, he expressed his worries that the 2022 World Cup will be moved from the European summer to winter months because of the intense heat in Qatar, thus disrupting his league.
Earlier last month, FIFA president Sepp Blatter reiterated his concerns over a summer World Cup saying it should be moved to the winter with the FIFA executive committee meeting to discuss the issue in October.