FIFA picks Nov. 21 as kickoff for shortened World Cup in Qatar

SHARE FIFA picks Nov. 21 as kickoff for shortened World Cup in Qatar
e3369wngbl30yd9ssgfd_999x664.jpg

German Wolfgang Niersbach, a member of the FIFA Executive Committee, speaks to reporters at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, on Friday. Walter Bieri/Keystone via AP

ZURICH — The 2022 World Cup in Qatar will start Monday, Nov. 21, kicking off a 28-day tournament — four days shorter than normal — that will finish on Sunday, Dec. 18.

FIFA’s executive committee confirmed the 2022 dates on Friday, six months after picking Dec. 18 — Qatar’s national holiday — for the final.

In March, FIFA finally decided to switch the 2022 tournament from June-July to avoid Qatar’s summer heat.

A 28-day World Cup is designed to cause less disruption to clubs and leagues that have to shut down for several peak midseason weeks, FIFA said.

FIFA had delayed choosing a kickoff date in Qatar while it held talks on the 2019-2024 schedule of national team fixtures.

The international calendar mandates when clubs must release players for national-team duty.

The calendar approved Friday means clubs must release players to the 32 World Cup teams by Monday, Nov. 14, 2022 — one week before the opening match.

No national team match dates — either qualifiers for continental championships or friendlies — have been set for October 2022.

Instead, the two fixtures typically scheduled in October will be moved forward four months.

That creates a four-match program for national teams, scheduled between May 30 and June 14, 2022 at the end of the European season.

In a minor switch, the September double-header of national team matches will be pushed back two weeks to start on Sept. 20, 2022.

The Latest
The man was shot in the left eye area in the 5700 block of South Christiana Avenue on the city’s Southwest Side.
Most women who seek abortions are women of color, especially Black women. Restricting access to mifepristone, as a case now before the Supreme Court seeks to do, would worsen racial health disparities.
The Bears have spent months studying the draft. They’ll spend the next one plotting what could happen.
Woman is getting anxious about how often she has to host her husband’s hunting buddy and his wife, who don’t contribute at all to mealtimes.
He launched a campaign against a proposed neo-Nazis march at a time the suburb was home to many Holocaust survivors. His rabbi at Skokie Central Congregation urged Jews to ignore the Nazis. “I jumped up and said, ‘No, Rabbi. We will not stay home and close the windows.’ ”