Qatar World Cup 2022: Fifa confirms dates for final and reveals shorter tournament
After years of speculation, disputes and recriminations, Fifa has finally settled on dates for the controversial 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
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Football's first winter World Cup will begin on 21 November and finish with the final on 18 December just 28 days later.
Previous World Cups have typically lasted 32 days, meaning the already tight schedule of games will be further crammed together.
Fifa opted to move their showpiece tournament, traditionally held in the summer, to a November – December time frame after it decided players would not be able to cope with the sweltering summer temperatures in the gulf state.
The European Club Association (ECA), which represents the interests biggest teams in the Champions League, had pushed for an April/May tournament in order to minimise disruption to their league season, but that was rejected as it coincided with Ramadan.
Qatar's controversial winning bid for the competition originally included the far-fetched proposition to include state of the art cooling down technology in its stadiums – an idea later scrapped.
Here's what its original bid proposed:
Each of the five stadia will harness the power of the sun's rays to provide a cool environment for players and fans by converting solar energy into electricity that will then be used to cool both fans and players at the stadia. When games are not taking place, the solar installations at the stadia will export energy onto the power grid. During matches, the stadia will draw energy from the grid.This is the basis for the stadia's carbon-neutrality. Along with the stadia, we plan to make the cooling technologies we’ve developed available to other countries in hot climates, so that they too can host major sporting events.