MUHAMMAD USMAN AWAN
Mohamed Bin Hammam, the head of the Asian Football Confederation, has said that the 2022 World Cup in Qatar will take place in the summer, despite fears over the effects of the emirate's summer temperatures.
The Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, has suggested that the tournament could be held in winter to protect players from the 40C temperatures common in Qatar in June and July, and Michel Platini, the Uefa president, has hinted that the event could be shared with other Gulf countries.
Asked if there was any intention to move the 2022 World Cup, Bin Hammam said: "Not at all. It is not our business. Our business is to organise a comfortable World Cup in June and July. That's what we have promised the world. And we are sticking to our promise and we are keeping our promise and that is our final word."
Bin Hammam, a Fifa vice-president, is critical of Blatter and hopes to succeed him as president. He told Sky News: "I believe Qatar can stand alone and organise the competition by itself 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 premature, it's people's opinions and they're just discussing it on no basis or no ground."
"I rather prefer [to] focus on the 2014 World Cup, which is in three and a half years, and 2018 after 2014. Then after 2018 maybe we can talk about 2022. But in any case I'm saying Qatar will very much be ready and will stand alone."
Bin Hammam said moving the tournament to winter would be unfair on the stakeholders of European football.
"I know that football in Europe it has quite a history, it is quite a business involving a lot of financial, media, marketing – it is unfair to these people that we talk about changing the calendar or the time without their full consultation and their full approval and their full agreement. I'm actually not happy to see that happening without the real stakeholders part of this discussion. There are a lot of stakeholders who should be consulted. It's not up to one, two, or three members of Fifa to talk about changing the time without getting the real stakeholders' opinions.
"We submitted a bid suggesting we are going to be ready in June, July. And we said we are going to face all the challenges and we are going to meet all the requirements. Our focus is June, July. It is never our interest to change one week beyond June, July."
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