If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen, was an oft used phrase when players appear to bow to intense pressure. Now we do not hear it quite as much as we have become more attuned to athletes well-being and understand that there may be more to that pressure than meets the eye.
However that heat issue is in fact a real one and one that maybe needs far closer attention.
As mentioned in Is Anyone Paying The Piper, the athletes in many sports are simply pawns within the business of sport. As those running the event or the sport rake in the dollars the athletes needs have become secondary.
On 2 December 2010, FIFA announced that Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. It is fair to say that mayhem ensued for the next couple of years. There were allegations of payments being made to ensure that the Arab nation received the votes required, that media personalities had been manipulated, as well as ex players and coaches. The original investigation found no wrong-doing, but subsequently it would appear that many of the allegations were in fact true.
Yet this should have come as no surprise to football fans as this has been the way for a very long time. Those who were upset were those who had paid for votes and didn’t get them. As well as England who had refused – some would say naively – to try and buy the necessary votes when they knew that the other bidding nations were. Honour has its price as they found out.
As the dust started to settle and the world resigned itself to the fact that there would not be another vote and that Qatar would host the World Cup in 2022 another bombshell was dropped.
Despite the requirement of the bid document stating that the nation must host the tournament in June or July, Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the 2022 Qatar bid chairman, stated, “the event has to be organized in June or July. We will have to take the help of technology to counter the harsh weather. We have already set in motion the process. A stadium with controlled temperature is the answer to the problem. We have other plans up our sleeves as well”.
The FIFA inspection team evaluating the bids of each nation looking to host the tournament had said that Qatar was “high risk” due to the weather. The then FIFA President Sepp Blatter initially rejected this criticism, however in September 2013 it was announced that the FIFA executive committee would evaluate the feasibility of a winter event instead of a summer one. Was this the “other plan” that Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani had up his sleeve?
Not surprisingly there were loud protests from Europe as they were used to having the tournament held during their off-season. As the most lucrative competitions in the world are based in Europe many believed that there was no chance of the tournament being shifted from those months.
On 24 February 2015, it was announced that Qatar would host a European winter World Cup. The event is scheduled to be held between November and December 2022.
What is interesting to note now is that at the time that this debate was raging former German World Cup Winner Franz Beckenbauer supported the move and was quoted as saying in relation to the tournament being played during the European Summer, “One should think about another solution. In January and February you have comfortable 25 °C (77 °F) there. Qatar won the vote and deserves a fair chance as the first host from the Middle East.”
Also, the then UEFA President Michel Platini who had voted for Qatar to host in 2022 indicated that he was ready to rearrange the European club competitions accordingly. Both of these former greats have since had their reputations ruined, Beckenbauer for refusing to cooperate in the investigation of bribery and Platini has been banned from involvement in football under FIFA’s organisation, over ethics violations.
At the time this writer like many thought the moving of the FIFA World Cup was unacceptable. In the main because the tender or bid document had stated that those bidding were bidding to host in June and July.
Yet now, forgetting the alleged corruption surrounding the bid process and even the moving of the dates of the tournament one cannot help but think that ultimately this may be one of the best things for sport, even though it is proof that money talks.
In June and July temperatures the average daytime high in most of Qatar exceeds 40 °C (104 °F), while the average daily low temperatures do not drop below 30 °C (86 °F). Two doctors from Qatar’s Aspetar sports hospital in Doha gave an interview in November 2010 to the Qatar Today magazine and they were quoted as saying that in these months the climate would be a big issue. Amongst their professional claims were that the climate would “affect performance levels from a health point of view” of professional athletes, and that “recovery times between games would be longer” than in a temperate climate and that, on the field of play, “more mistakes would be made.”
While the date change may break with the modern day norm, few can argue that the reasons for it make perfect sense.
So should other events also look at the possibility of having more flexibility when it comes to the dates of their tournaments?
As we saw recently in Japan at the Tokyo Olympics the temperatures were extremely high. There was an average of 32.5°C with the humidity levels averaging over 60%. This caused many athletes immense problems in their events. For this very reason back in 1964 when Tokyo last hosted the Olympic Games they ran from October 10 – 24, when the temperatures were in the 20’s.
Once again we see money being a big influencer, and the European market being the one that dictates many of these decisions, yet are these decisions being made in the best interests of competition or the athletes? Are they being made to allow the athletes the best opportunity to perform at their best?
It would appear that this is not the case. These two factors are not taken into consideration. More important appears to be what dates will be the least disruptive – from a financial perspective – to existing events, along with when will be the best for the European audiences and potentially generate the most income.
It is interesting to look back over the past 50 years, from 1972 to the Tokyo Olympic Games held this year there have been 13 Olympiads. Only two of those have been held outside of the months of June, July and August, the traditional months of the European Summer. These were Seoul in 1988 held in September/October and Sydney in 2000 which was held in the same two months, while Munich in 1972 was held in late August and ran into the first week of September. Mexico City in 1968 and Tokyo in 1964 were both hosted in October.
Of course it is understandable that all quadrennial events, be they Olympic Games and World Cups do not want to disrupt the normal tournaments which produce the international players. Also tradition is extremely important to sports fans.
However player well-being must be taken into consideration. Putting on the best spectacle where athletes can perform at their optimum should be a key component if these events are to be branded world class and result in world class performances. This is after all what the paying fans and those tuning in want to see.
Three of the last four Olympic Games have been contested in the highest temperatures on record. Even if you are not an advocate of climate change you have to say that this concerning and cannot be good for the athletes. It is also not good for the fans, as performances will be impaired.
As much as the way Qatar won the hosting rights to next year’s FIFA World Cup appeared to go against the grain, and the fact that they were permitted to move away from the conditions of the bid document, and also that they proved that with money you can move mountains, one has to wonder will Qatar 2022 be a catalyst for change? Will it be the event that sees World Cups and Olympic Games no longer locked into set windows on the calendar? For Qatar 2022 will be the first FIFA World Cup not to be held in the months of May, June or July.
For the sake of the athletes and the performances we all crave as sports fans let us hope so. Although it would be ironic as after all it was once again money that was the key element that prompted the change for the FIFA World Cup.
(It should be noted that some sports already do move the dates of their major events taking the heat into consideration).
