PARIS: Changing the dates of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar would play havoc with the league programme in Europe, Association of European Professional Football Leagues (EPFL) said yesterday.
Chairman Frederic Thiriez told EPFL’s general assembly in Stockholm that “EPFL considers that any re-scheduling of the World Cup would be damaging the domestic competitions and leagues’ business and sporting interests”. The insistence that the tournament should go ahead as planned in the summer, despite the heat, flies in the face of the view of FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who wants it moved to November-December, when the conditions are more conducive to playing football. “We cannot play the World Cup in summer,” Blatter had told the radio station France Info on Monday. “The date which is the most convenient is the end of the year.”
Blatter, who has since January 2011 conceded the finals would have to be switched from the traditional June/July dates, agreed the change would not please clubs. “However, the World Cup is too important,” he said.
