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Three years before most awaited event for the supporters of the game football, World Cup Qatar 2022, on November 2019 coronavirus virus appeared in the headlines and soon became a pandemic pressing the pause button on almost every sports event along with a necessarily imposed lockdown. Here is the update on the game for you!
But first, here are the answers to your most asked questions:
The FIFA World Cup 2022, The 22nd edition of the FIFA World Cup will be located in Qatar. The scheduled event takes place every four years being a quadrennial international men's association football championship contested by the national teams of the member associations of FIFA.
Qatar, however, will be debuting in the game's biggest event in 2022 and it will be the first World Cup ever to be held in the Arab world and the first in a Muslim-majority country Not only that but the 2022 World Cup also will be the second World Cup held entirely in Asia after the 2002 tournament in South Korea and Japan.
Well, as the middle east is already famous for its heat, an event like world cup cannot be organised in such weather. Hence, making this world cup more special is the fact that this will also mark the first World Cup not to be held in May, June, or July as it is scheduled for late November until mid-December.
There are also other reasons besides avoiding the summer heat between May and September like avoiding clashing with the 2022 Winter Olympics in February and Ramadan in April. Considering this, on October 2013, a task force was commissioned to consider alternative dates and report after the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil and following that on the 24 February 2015, the FIFA Task Force proposed that the tournament be played from late November to late December 2022
Well, since it has been shifted from its traditional timeframe of June and July, it will be played in a reduced timeframe of around 28 days, with the final being held on 18 December 2022, which is also Qatar National Day.
While it will be avoiding some clashes, to be held in December 2022, FIFA World Cup has been not very well accepted. Why? The reason being the staging the tournament in November is set to interfere with the regular season schedules of some domestic leagues around the world.
The inevitable clash with the Western Christmas season is likely to cause disruption, whilst there is concern about how short the tournament is intended to be along with the fact that there will be a clash with the schedule of the A-League, Premier League's popular Christmas and New Year fixture programme.
Before the staring of the previous world cup, i.e. on 12 April 2018, CONMEBOL or South American Football Confederation requested that FIFA expand the 2022 FIFA World Cup from 32 to 48 teams. Now, this was supposed to happen in 2026 FIFA World Cup but the request was to do it four years earlier than initially planned.
While FIFA President Gianni Infantino expressed willingness to consider the request, the FIFA congress rejected the request shortly before the beginning of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Now, the reason given by Infantino was that the global football governing body would not discuss the possibility of having a 48-team World Cup and that they would first discuss the matter with the host country.
Well, next year in March 2019, a "FIFA feasibility study" was performed which concluded that it was possible to expand the tournament to 48 teams, albeit with the assistance of "one or more" neighbouring countries and "two to four additional venues." Along with the change that will be caused in the bidding process. However, the joint proposals of FIFA and Qatar were never submitted to the FIFA Council and the FIFA Congress and on 22 May 2019, FIFA announced it will not expand the tournament.
All the teams have to pass through a rigid and tough selection process by the Asian section of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification acts as qualifiers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Qatar, for national teams which are members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
Qatar, despite automatically qualified due to their position as hosts, is participating alongside them a total of 4.5 slots (4 direct slots and 1 inter-confederation play-off slot) in the final tournament which are available for AFC teams. With more than 100 matches played in span of two years from June 2019 to November 2021, the qualification process involves four rounds, where the first two rounds double as the qualification for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup.
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