In 100 days’ time, the 2022 Fifa World Cup will kick off… we think!
After the recent hasty rearrangement of Qatar’s opening fixture against Ecuador, the two will now battle it out in the first match of the 22nd edition of football’s headline international event. And the late switch is just the latest bizarre twist which makes the very existence of this winter’s tournament still seem unreal.
There was the now infamous moment when former Fifa president Sepp Blatter revealed the name of Qatar as the hosts on 2 December 2010 to widespread disbelief. A country of just 4,500 square miles with searing summer heat, anti-LGBT legislation and alcohol bans? Surely this wouldn’t go ahead?
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And as the unfolding story of widespread corruption in the bidding process became increasingly murky, it seemed impossible that we would be seeing a World Cup in Qatar. Then there was the decision to entertain a switch to the winter so that the extreme temperatures would not turn into a major health concern, leading the Australian FA to threaten legal action after they’d spent millions on a bid which they had been told must be built around a June/July timeframe.
Even after the resignation of Blatter, it was hoped that the appointment of Gianni Infantino as the new president might lead to a rethink, with many of those involved the compromised bidding process now disgraced as a result of various revelations and the 2015 US raid of seven Fifa officials at the organisation’s annual congress. But still there was no budging them.
At every step of the bonkers build-up there has been a reason to believe that a late switch of hosts would be made, but here we are – 100 days out from the strangest of realities. It still doesn’t feel like a World Cup year, with the beginning of the European domestic league seasons only adding to the sense of normality which will be dragged to a screeching halt come November 20th (or 19th, or 18th… who can say?!)
It feels like this will be less a tournament to savour and more an experience to get on with and get out of there without too much damage being done, a bit like a Monday at work. Who can say what the actual football will be like, with so many of the players coming into it slap-bang in the middle of a busy, condensed domestic campaign.
All in all, it means this is a World Cup like no other. And not in a good way.
*18+ | BeGambleAware | Odds Subject to Change
