<
>

Premier League managers divided on proposed winter World Cup

play
Allardyce backs Winter World Cup (1:19)

West Ham manager Sam Allardyce discusses how a good result against Crystal Palace on Saturday will get his team back on track to challenge the 'Big Boys' in the top six. (1:19)

FIFA's move to stage the 2022 World Cup in the winter continued to cause uproar with Premier League managers saying English football will pay the price.

A FIFA task force this week announced a recommendation of late November to late December, the final could be as late as Dec. 23 under a UEFA proposal.

The European Clubs' Association will discuss its next tactics at a board meeting in Geneva on Tuesday after FIFA ruled out paying compensation for the disruption to club competitions.

Sunderland manager Gus Poyet said FIFA had been responsible for the mess around the 2022 World Cup and English football was paying the price.

He said: "[FIFA] voted for Qatar, and if they knew where Qatar was and how hot it is in June and July, maybe their vote was wrong. It's their responsibility and we have to accept it and get on with it.

"It's very easy after people have made the decisions to vote for one country for whatever interest they had, now to complain because it's going to be played in November or December.

"You think before you vote, it is as simple as that. I think they need to be a little bit more responsible themselves. Now we (English football) have to pay the price."

Newcastle head coach John Carver added: "When the bid went in and there was talk about a summer World Cup, and all of a sudden, they're talking about having it just before Christmas.

"It will have an impact certainly on the guys who play in the African Nations Cup [in June 2023] as well, so if Senegal, for example, qualified for the World Cup and then the African Nations, it would have an impact on those guys because I don't see where they would get any sort of break."

Crystal Palace manager Alan Pardew, however, claimed a winter World Cup in Qatar in 2022 would help England's chances and that the world of football must just deal with any disruption the change in dates will cause.

The final decision on the dates will be made by FIFA on March 20, and Pardew said playing in Qatar in the summer would not have been right.

Pardew said: "England certainly wouldn't benefit from a World Cup in the summer in Qatar, for our fans or for our players.

"Qatar have won the process and we all have to understand in football that year could well be a winter World Cup. We have to deal with it and I'm sure we can.

"We have to organise our winter leagues and programmes around it accordingly.

"Can it be a success? Absolutely, why not? Most World Cups are a success."

West Ham boss Sam Allardyce agreed that a summer World Cup in Qatar would have been impossible.

He said: "I've been to Doha at that time of year of before and the heat is unbelievable, you can't leave the pool so I don't know how they're going to play football there.

"It would be impossible to play in temperatures of 40 or 50 degrees Celsius, dangerous. Even so I think it's right to move it. We've got seven years to organise it and work round it, so that is certainly enough time. The players will have to be given adequate time to prepare beforehand and recover afterwards."

Meanwhile, Olympic powerbroker Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah from Kuwait has announced he will stand for FIFA's executive committee.

Sheikh Ahmad, credited with helping Tokyo win the 2020 Olympics and Thomas Bach the IOC presidency, is president of the Olympic Council of Asia and head of the Association of National Olympic Committees. If elected, he would be a significant force in FIFA.