DOHA: Football fans in Qatar have criticised Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore who says the 2022 FIFA World Cup should be moved if it can’t be staged in summer.
Scudamore has been a vocal critic of FIFA President Sepp Blatter who says switching the 2022 FIFA World Cup to winter would be good for fans.
“I will do my best to prevent the World Cup being moved to winter,” Scudamore was quoted as saying on Monday.
“And I will do my best to have the World Cup moved away from Qatar.” A fan on popular Arab social networking site qatarshare said moving the World Cup out of Qatar was never going to happen.
“(The) World Cup will take place (in Qatar) no matter what,” he said.
“Critics of a World Cup in Qatar will see that this country will stage a great World Cup,” he added. “By staging this event, the Arab world will show it to the world what this game means to them. I feel there should be no jealousy on this matter,” he added in reference to Scudamore’s comments.
Another reader pointed out: “The only benefit will be for Qatar’s infrastructure but the damage will be uncountable.”
Scudamore is totally opposed to the idea of switching the 2022 FIFA World Cup to winter.
“I’m not going to say I think it will happen because I’m still working the best I can, garnering enough support, a groundswell of support, to make sure it doesn’t happen in winter,” he said on Monday.
“We do want to have it in summer — the summer is the right time. If Qatar is unable to hold a proper tournament in the summer for fans then it should be put on somewhere else is my simple view.” Qatar, where football remains the number one sport, beat Australia, Japan, South Korea and the United States in a historic FIFA Executive Committee vote in December 2010. Scudamore said Blatter’s comments made little sense.
“When the technical bid book went in, it had to go through everything, like fan experience. The idea the technical committee did not know people were going to be exposed to that heat is crazy. If Mr Blatter says it is not right for the fans he should move it.
“The world has a calendar that’s geared around finding those two months every four years in the summer to have the World Cup,” he said. “To alter it to a different time of year messes up everybody’s calendar, not just ours.”
One commentator on the same blog said Scudamore wasn’t against Qatar hosting the World Cup. He said Scudamore was merely defending Premier League interests that could be harmed if Qatar World Cup was moved to winter.
