SCOTTISH football will face three years of disruption if FIFA ratifies a recommendation to stage the Qatar World Cup in November and December.
A taskforce set up by the world governing body has recommended that the 2022 finals be held at the end of the year because the traditional summer slot would be dangerously hot for players and supporters.
But staging the competition in the final two months of the 2022 will cause major problems for the majority of European domestic leagues, and the recommendation met with opposition and criticism. Officials at the SPFL have worked on various scheduling scenarios since Qatar was chosen as the host venue in December, 2010. One SPFL source said a mid-season World Cup would blow a six-week hole in the domestic season which would be "a mess", but added that there was confidence that the Premiership, the three lower divisions, the Scottish Cup, League Cup and Challenge Cup would all be staged as normal. UEFA are satisfied that Champions League and Europa League ties could be easily staged either side of a late World Cup.
The provisional plan would be for the Scottish season to continue until as close as possible to the start of the World Cup finals - FIFA require that players are released for international tournaments no fewer than 14 days before they start - and that it would resume as soon as possible when the finals were over. The FIFA taskforce has proposed playing the World Cup in the period between November 19 and December 23. The 2022-23 Scottish season would probably start a couple of weeks earlier than usual and either finish a few weeks later than normal or else have more midweek league games in the second half of the season. It is expected that there would be disruption and changes to the domestic calendar which would first emerge in the 2021-22 season, come to a head in 2022-23, and even ripple through into 2023-24.
The SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster is a member of the European Professional Football Leagues board, which represents the joint interests of 24 member countries. The SPFL supported a statement issued by the EPFL which said: "The Association of European Professional Football Leagues and the clubs have expressed their disagreement with respect to this proposal which will perturb and cause great damage to the normal running of the European domestic competitions.
"Leagues and clubs have reiterated, once again, their joint solution for holding the World Cup during the month of May. This proposal has been structured on a fact-based study which is totally acceptable from the meteorological point of view by providing reasonable climatic conditions with regard to both players and fans."
The FIFA Executive Committee will take a final decision when it meets on March 19.
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