(Football news) The 2022 World Cup in Qatar will be a unique one, as it will be held in the middle of the domestic club calendar unlike the traditional summer window. The reason for a ‘winter’ World Cup is because a country like Qatar has temperatures up to 50 degrees celsius during the summers, making it next to impossible for games to be held in between seasons as has been the tradition for decades.

With the 2022 World Cup almost only a year away, the Premier League has announced a heavily revised calendar for next season, accommodating the prestigious national team tournament in the months of November and December. The season is set to begin a week earlier, on August 6th 2022 and will finish on May 28th 2023. The league will run for 16 game weeks until the weekend of November 12-13 after which it will resume on Boxing Day, just eight days after the World Cup final will be played (December 18th).

The 2022 World Cup will begin on November 21st 2022, thereby giving national teams only a week to prepare instead of almost a month that is usually given. Moreover, players traditionally would get about three weeks to recover from the World Cup but those reaching the finals will have just a week before the resumption of the Premier League.

For most fans and players, the idea of a winter World Cup seems bizarre to say the least. The global football calendar will need changing in order to accommodate a World Cup in November and December and the football authorities have taken no consideration of the welfare of players who will be playing a record number of games in a short span of time. To make matters worse, the concept of a biennial World Cup is in talks, a clear indication that football is gearing away from the sport itself and more towards generating revenue, even if that comes at the cost of tradition, heritage and player welfare.

Also read: Premier League clubs oppose FIFA’s proposal of biennial World Cup