Asian soccer chief Mohamed Bin Hammam yesterday ruled out shifting the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to winter or staging tournament matches around the Gulf region.
Bin Hammam told Sky News in an interview that he was “unimpressed” by suggestions from FIFA president Sepp Blatter that the tournament could be moved to a winter time slot.
He also took aim at remarks by UEFA president Michel Platini earlier this week that the 2022 tournament could be a “Gulf World Cup,” with matches taking place in several countries surrounding Qatar.
“I believe Qatar can stand alone and organize the competition by itself,” Asian Football Confederation president Bin Hammam told Sky.
“And I’m really not very impressed by these opinions to -distribute the game over the Gulf or change the time from July to January — it’s actually premature, you know, it’s people’s opinions and they’re just discussing it on no basis or no ground,” the Qatari official added.
English soccer clubs have said switching the World Cup to January or February would be a logistical nightmare that would mean at least a two-month mid-season break for the Premier League.
Bin Hammam appeared to sympathize with European leagues likely to be affected by a date change as he continued his criticism of Blatter’s remarks.
“It’s not up to one, two or three members of FIFA to talk about changing the time without getting the real stakeholders’ opinions,” Bin Hammam added.
“I know that football in Europe has quite a history, it is quite a business involving a lot of financial, media, marketing — a lot of things,” he said “It is unfair to these people that we talk about changing the calendar or the time without their full consultation and their full approval and their full agreement — I’m actually not happy to see that happening without the real stakeholders’ part of this discussion.”
FIFA has said world soccer’s governing body would need to receive an official request from the Qatar FA before any change of the 2022 tournament dates could be formally discussed.
Bin Hammam said no request would be forthcoming.
“We are not interested — we are very happy and we are promising the world that we are going to organize an amazing World Cup in June and July,” he said.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB