Leaked UEFA documents published by L’Equipe suggest national team coaches will have just one week to prepare for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
According to the French newspaper, players will only be released to their national teams by clubs from November 14.
The tournament is due to kick off in Qatar on November 21 and run to the Final on December 18.
This will be the first time the World Cup has been played in the winter, a solution required after assigning the tournament to one of the hottest countries on earth.
The Champions League will also be brought forward to start from September 6, finishing the group phase in early November.
If confirmed, this will create even more controversy and anger around the decision to play the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
There are already complaints about the change of scheduling and the poor human rights record of the host country, including deaths during the construction of the stadiums.
La Coupe du monde au Qatar, qui se déroulera du 21 novembre au 18 décembre 2022, va imposer un calendrier extrêmement dense aux internationaux, qui disputeront une dernière journée de championnat à une semaine du match d’ouverture https://t.co/L0Dxl6mrYG pic.twitter.com/9iWJ7NLEuc
— L’ÉQUIPE (@lequipe) October 12, 2021
They can be released by their respective teams one week before the tournament starts, but they still need to fly to Qatar and adapt to the new environment. Realistically, before everyone arrives and acclimatizes to the situation, they’ll have maybe 4-5 days of practice before the biggest tournament in the world – totally unacceptable!
Between the extreme heat, the questionable human rights practices, their abuse of workers, and the drastic change to the schedule, this tournament should’ve never been granted to Qatar.
For all the respective national Football Associations that whinged because of the disruption to their domestic leagues, this is your comeuppance!
The weather in November and December will not be hot, it will be pleasant. But a week is very less time, should have been 2-3 weeks for such a big tournament.
for me this world cup being held in Qatar, changing the tradional timing and scheduling of tournament, interrupting the club / CL season, and players winter break is awful enough… but the corruptness and greed of how they were given the host job, and lives lost through unlawful labor laws is just disgusting.
further more next world cup 2026 gets an unneccesary reboot of 48 teams = 16 groups of 3 ? like we really need it to be watered down, and deminish the quality, and talent. that Brazil v Liechtenstein or Spain v Pakistan is gonna be scorcher.
if it works dont fix it…. even if the matches are fixed.
Qatar should have never been granted by the bid by Fifa Exec. Commttee.
Corruption at it’s finest. The decision to award Qatar the WC occurred under Sepp Blatter’s “leadership” in cronyism. Infantino made the decision to “honor” the decision by the putgoong Exec. Board. Weak spined Infantino. No backbone.
He should have decided to void the awarded bid to Qatar and direct tge new Exec. Board to conduct a new bud process.