Asian football chief Mohamed Bin Hammam on Friday ruled out shifting the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to winter or staging tournament matches around the Gulf region. Bin Hammam told Sky News in an interview that he was "unimpressed" by suggestions from FIFA President Sepp Blatter that the tournament could be moved to a winter time slot.
He also took aim at remarks by UEFA President Michel Platini earlier this week that the 2022 tournament could be a "Gulf World Cup", with matches taking place in several countries surrounding Qatar. "I believe Qatar can stand alone and organise the competition by itself," Asian Football Confederation President Bin Hammam told Sky.
"And I'm really not very impressed by these opinions to distribute the game over the Gulf or change the time from July to January - it's actually premature, you know, it's people's opinions and they're just discussing it on no basis or no ground," the Qatari official added. English football clubs have said switching the World Cup to January or February would be a logistical nightmare that would need at least a two-month mid-season break to the Premier League.
Bin Hammam appeared to sympathise with European leagues likely to be affected by a date change as he continued his criticism of Blatter's remarks. "It's not up to one, two or three members of Fifa to talk about changing the time without getting the real stakeholders' opinions," Bin Hammam added. FIFA has said world football's governing body would need to receive an official request from the Qatar FA before any change of the 2022 tournament dates could be formally discussed.