Then I can see why we disagree. But FIFA is the association of each country's football association and the World Cup is their prestige event. It doesn't seem unlikely that they think it is the most important event in world football and act accordingly.
Well the footballing grounds that it would disrupt many countries' domestic leagues and the general status quo. I'm not saying that's right (though I think it is) - I'm just saying that if Qatar had bid for a winter event from the start they would have been less likley to win it, contrary to what you said. How many countries even have domestic leagues that run through our summer? I actually don't know. All the South Americans? Any Asian ones? Also let's remember that "prejudice" implies unfounded opinions prior to information or knowledge. It's different to "discretion". It's not being prejudiced to say "The World Cup will be held in NH summertime. Why? Cos it just suits us (by which I mean the vast majority of people who play/watch football and the countries who did, after all, invent the game)". It's a bit annoying if it clashes with something in your domestic diary, sure. But that's not a decision driven by prejudice.
Its a given that money is the main issue which means that large rich countries will generally get to host the World Cup. It is probably daft to hold it in Qatar but I've been reacting to what I see as prejudice in the arguments on here rather than logic.
Agreed on what 'prejudice' means. The vast majority of people who play and watch football are probably in South America these days!
I am prejudice against prejudice PS so I support your motive, but I don't see prejudice in this discussion.
Bold words! Bear in mind that you're ruling out all of Europe, all of North America, all of China, all of India, all of the Far East, all of the Middle East, the majority of Africa (and these are just the Northern Hemisphere places which are not in South America, never mind all the rest of the World which is not South America).
My words were badly thought through. I meant there were more South Americans than Europeans. But one day what if India wants to host the World Cup? It would make a lot of sens for it to be in January then.
Google just told me that South Africa's football season runs Aug-May. Argentina's is split into two parts, apparently this is common and it's actually to make it fit in with the European season. Brazil's league season runs from May to December (?!). Peru (random South American country of my choosing) runs February to December. So the main African, Southern Hemisphere country is fine with summer tournaments. Looks like South American leagues get dicked about quite a bit. Sorry about that. And frankly should the whole footballing world be concerned about when, say, the Indonesian (random,big country in Southern Hemisphere) league runs? Probably not. So I can't be bothered to Google it. Ooh - the Chinese league runs from Feb til Dec! Hey! And the Japanese one goes from March to December! Should I send them an email and tell them that they're in the Northern Hemisphere and they're ruining my argument? Hmm - so some countries see football as a summer game. Interesting. (Balls - my data-gathering mission was looking good when I looked up the info for South Africa. All downhill after that).
The most obvious summer leagues to me are the Scandinavian ones. The Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and possibly a few others all start around March and end around November.
Now that, PNP, is some Euro-centric thinking right there! "Sod the whole ofSouth America - it's Scandinavia I think of!" Powerspurs - PNP is being racist - can you make him stop, please?
1:30am my time. I'm avoiding learning about statistics. It's all in that website that's open in that tab all the way over there. Right over there all the way over to the right - just next to all the tabs telling me the domestic league dates for the Peruvian football season etc...
If you include Argentina, you have to include us. I agree totally with Spurf on this, it's disgraceful that they lied about when the tournament would be held and it should world to another vote. Equally it's not about making it advantageous for Europe, it's about playing in conditions that are good for football, there are enough places in the world to hold this (Holland would be long overdue) without finding places with such extremes of temperature.
I'm not sure on this, but does Holland have he facilities to host a WC on it's own? I seem to remember that the Euros were held jointly with Belgium.
The World Cup has become The Eurovision Song Contest of football. This big, lavish event designed to showcase the best talent, but turns out to be a load of boring, overhyped, second rate pap. Please do not mess with the PL for the benefit of staging the bloody World Cup. It isn't justified on any ground.
There is one big difference between the two. Only one mind: We are guaranteed to qualify for the song contest. Otherwise, identical.
Russia used to be March-September, so for Euro 2008 they had to suspend the Russian Premier League between April and July to accommodate the tournament. Russia, Ukraine and Croatia all have May-July seasons, with a break between late November/early December and the middle of March due to the harsh winters.
So how would the EPL work for 2022. Would we start in July, finish in June or play on without the International players? If the tournament was mid Jan to mid Feb, we'd stop after New Years day games and restart beginning of March/late Feb? So 2 months delay. I guess they could suspend the Carling cup that year, get a few extra league games in that way, but a normal August start would still run into late June I would say. The next season would have to start a bit later. Sounds nightmarish.
The number of Games in the EPL and the World Cup combined is exactly the same whatever the schedule so don't we just stop for five weeks and over-run into June where the World Cup would have been?
