Andrew Oyler
English 102-59
Professor Paudel
3/2/2015
World
Cup 2022
According
to FIFA’s official website, “Opening
matches set new audience high’s for 2014 all over the world as fans watched in
record numbers in nations such as Brazil, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom,
Argentina, France, the Netherlands, Croatia and Italy. An all-time high was set
in French-speaking part of Belgium.” Being one of the most viewed and popular
sporting event in the world, the FIFA World Cup is going to bring a lot of talk
and controversy no matter where it is, but the awarding of the World Cup to
Qatar to host has seemed to bring about more conflict than any tournament
before. Due to the scorching hot temperatures during the summer months in
Qatar, which on average can be anywhere between 35 to 45 degree Celsius,
according to Aljazeera, a Qatar based broadcaster, there have been questions
raised as to whether the tournament should be held in the traditional summer
months, or moved to a period when the weather is cooler. Moving a tournament of
this popularity, which would break a 92-year tradition of the tournament being
played in the summer of course, does not sit well with everyone in the
footballing world. The 2022 World
Cup that is to be hosted by Qatar should not be played in the summer due to the
extreme temperatures that Qatar face in the summer months. These temperatures
are unsafe for players, spectators or tourists, and could affect the amount of
people that come to support the event.
During the 2008 Olympics in Beijing
there were some cautions with athletes performing based on the high
temperatures there, averaging 30 degree Celsius. “The
average maximum temperature in August is around 30oC (Table 1) which, according
to the WBGT index, increases the risk of heat illness due to environment stress
to very high levels.” (Borresen 50) With the average temperature in Qatar well
above the temperatures that were posing a threat to athletes during the 2008
Olympics, these conditions are not ideal and are a serious health risk for any
professional athlete, let alone one that runs on average 7 miles a match. (Fox)
An article written in the California Western International Law Journal states
that, “The award to Qatar was particularly controversial, as FIFA’s own
technical report stated the high temperatures in Qatar could pose a health risk
to not only players but to officials and spectators as well.” FIFA itself has said these conditions can cause health
risks, so without an adequate fix to the issue; it would be impractical to
stage a tournament during months when the temperature can cause harm.
To deal with this heat at the event,
Qatar has proposed the idea of stadium cooling technology during matches. CNN
reporter Mark Tutton states, “But football's
governing body seems to have been swayed by Qatar's plans to overcome the
sweltering heat by building nine new fully air-conditioned open-air stadiums
that work using solar power.” Tutton also says, “It will be used to chill
water, which in turn will cool air before it is blown through the stadium,
keeping pitch temperatures below 27 C (80 F).” This technology would provide a
safe environment for the athletes to compete in during matches. The same
cooling system would also be used to cool the training facilities used by the
teams. (Tutton) There have been some doubts as to if this new technology will
work as planned. Mark Hansford, editor for NCE.co.uk, a civil engineering news
site, has said, “But Aecom design principal Graham Goymour warned that at this
stage it was unknown whether the designs would work.” If this technology is
sure to work, it would solve a huge problem, but there are still doubts over
whether this will be an effective method of controlling the temperature.
Not
only does this temperature pose a threat to the players, but also to the fans
of the event. During 2010, there were heat waves moving through Northern Europe
that impacted the tourism industry and “tourists experienced thermo-physiological
discomfort which could be observed in increased hospital admissions and
fatalities”(Becken 7) Some of these temperatures that occurred during these
heat waves were lower or around the same temperatures as the average summers in
Qatar. (Heidorn) If these temperatures could cause heat related problems to
tourists in Europe during that summer, then the same types of problems can
occur in Qatar if the World Cup is staged in the summer. According to Becken,
“The 2003 heatwave was responsible for 15,000 deaths in France and major shifts
in traditional tourist flows for this year away from the traditional resorts in
the Mediterranean and towards Northern or Western beach locations.” Although it
is the world cup, the heat could still affect the number of spectators that
could make the trip to attend the event, as these high temperatures has proven
to cause changes in tourist trends in other places in the world. Arsene Wenger,
the current Arsenal manager who has been involved in playing and coaching
professionally for the past 46 years has recently said in an interview, "It's impossible to play in the summer and I think it makes
sense, if you want people to survive there, its the only way to have it in a
comfortable way for the supporters.
Although the temperatures will be
very hot, fans too will be cooled in the World Cup stadiums during the matches.
The bid book director for the 2022 Qatar world cup has said, "The same air will also be projected from the back and neck
area of the seats, ensuring that each seating row of each stadium provides
maximum comfort and enjoyment to fans," Spectators will also be provided
with transportation to and from the stadium that will be using cooling
technology to keep them comfortable. (Hansford) This will only be provided to
the spectators as they are attended a match, but a majority of the time spent
at the event the spectators or tourists will be elsewhere because one can only
attend so many matches.
Another
issue with the proposal of a world cup that is not in the summer is an
interference with the domestic leagues in Europeans countries, where the season
lasts from about August to May. The European football community has split
opinions on this topic with many of them sharing their opinions on the
disruptions a non-summer world cup would cause. Representatives for the English
Premier League have said that a winter world keep is “neither workable or
desirable for European domestic football” (Eurosport) Karl-Heinz Rummeneige,
the chairman of the European Clubs’ Association (ECA) has stated "For the football family, the rescheduling of the FIFA World
Cup 2022 presents a difficult and challenging task," Although moving the
world cup from the traditional summer months would create a daunting task of
readjusting a 10 month schedule to accommodate it, it can be done, and there
are many people with experience in the field that believe so. The Serbian
Football Association supports the movement of the World Cup from the summer
months and believes “2022 World Cup is seven years away and I think they have
enough time to readjust.” (Eurosport) Reuters, a reporter for the sports
website Eurosport, agrees with the Serbian FA, stating, “As for the disruption,
is it really beyond the wit of organizers of the richest leagues in the world,
with seven years to work with, to come up with a plan to adjust their current
seasonal dates to accommodate one winter World Cup?” With seven years to come
up with an alternate schedule for just one year, it is hard to think that some
of the biggest sports leagues in the world cannot devise a plan that is
suitable for all parties. While Europeans football leagues do provide majority
of the players playing in the World Cup, it is still a world event. When the
event is held in the summer, it is disrupting many domestic leagues in the
Americas who have found ways to deal with the interruptions.
Staging a World Cup in the summer in
a country with a place whose temperatures can reach 45 degree Celsius is not
ideal for any player or spectator and can pose serious health risks for anyone
involved in the event. If the cooling technology is not ready by the time the
World Cup is played, the event could be disastrous. This change in tradition does
bring up a problem with European domestic leagues, but with time on their side
and many intelligent individuals running these associations, a solution can
surely be found in the next seven years. All in all, this is the a huge
sporting event that occurs only every four years, one year of European domestic
football can be altered to accommodate the event. In the words of a two-time World
Cup veteran Gary Neville, "Disrupted for a
World Cup? You're making the World Cup sound like the Sherpa Vans Trophy. The
World Cup's the World Cup, it's hardly a tin-pot competition.”
Works Cited
Becken, Susanne.
"HE IMPORTANCE OF CLIMATE AND WEATHER FOR TOURISM." Land
Environment and People (2010): 7. Print.
Borresen, Jill.
"Environmental Considerations for Athletic Performance at the 2008 Beijing
Olympic Games." International SportMed Journal 9.2 (2008): 50.
Print.
"FIFA Rules out
Summer World Cup for Qatar." - Al Jazeera English. Web. 4 Mar.
2015.
<http://www.aljazeera.com/sport/2014/01/fifa-rules-out-summer-world-cup-qatar-201418114833263941.html>.
"FIFA World Cup
2022: Why The United States Cannot Successfully Challenge FIFA Awarding The Cup
To Qatar and How the Qatar Controversy Shows FIFA Needs Large-Scale
Changes." California Western International Law Journal 42.1 (2011):
550. Print.
Hansford, Mark.
"Qatar World Cup: Will Stadiums Stay Cool?" Qatar World Cup: Will
Stadiums Stay Cool? 13 Nov. 2013. Web. 4 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.nce.co.uk/news/structures/qatar-world-cup-will-stadiums-stay-cool/8655710.article>.
Heidorn, Keith.
"The Northern Hemisphere Heat Wave of 2010." Weather Doctor's
Weather People and History:. 15 July 2011. Web. 5 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/history/2010heatwave-nh.htm>.
Reuters.
"ANALYSIS-Attention European Leagues - It's the World Cup." Eurosport.
25 Feb. 2015. Web. 5 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.eurosport.com/football/analysis-attention-european-leagues-it-s-the-world-cup_sto4616813/story.shtml>.
Reuters.
"Winter World Cup 'unworkable and Undesirable'" Eurosport. 24
Feb. 2015. Web. 5 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.eurosport.com/football/world-cup/2014/winter-world-cup-unworkable-and-undesirable_sto4615501/story.shtml>.
Tutton, Mark.
"Qatar Promises Air-conditioned World Cup." CNN. Cable News
Network, 10 Dec. 2010. Web. 4 Mar. 2015.
<http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SPORT/12/03/qatar.world.cup/>.
"TV Viewing Breaks Records in
First FIFA World Cup Matches." FIFA.com. 19 June 2014. Web. 4 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/news/y=2014/m=6/news=tv-viewing-breaks-records-in-first-fifa-world-cup-matches-2378078.html>.
