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GENEVA — The World Cup in Qatar could start a day earlier than expected, with FIFA allowing the host country to play Ecuador on Nov. 20, a user familiar with the proposal told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The user said a resolution could be made within a few days through a committee made up of FIFA President Gianni Infantino and the heads of the six continental football bodies.
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The proposal to create a 29-day tournament out of the 28 long planned has been favored by Qatar officials and the CONMEBOL South American soccer framework, with discussions also involving the Qatar and Ecuador football federations, the user said.
The World Cup is scheduled to open on Nov. 21, a Monday, with the Netherlands facing Senegal at 1 p. m. Qatar and Ecuador are also in Group A, but this meeting is scheduled to start six hours later the same day. .
The preparation schedule, with the official opening rite in the 3rd edition in which Qatar was to play, ended after the draw in Doha on April 1.
A match on Sunday for the World Cup was scrapped several years ago when FIFA agreed to a shorter 28-day schedule that required 4 games per day level of organisation after talks with influential leagues in Europe that will play club matches until November 13.
However, a Qatar-Ecuador duel reaches few players who are with European clubs and would give the host country an exclusive day to open its tournament.
The opening rite could now take place before the opening match, at Al Bayt Stadium, and open Monday’s early morning shift for the Netherlands and Senegal.
The 2022 World Cup is the first in the tournament’s 92-year history to take place outdoors in the classic Northern Hemisphere summer. The last 21 editions were played between the end of May and the end of July.
FIFA finalized a resolution in 2015 in the face of the scorching summer heat in Qatar and moved to November and December, despite opposition from most European footballers dissatisfied with closing their domestic leagues for several peak weeks.
The schedule of the tournament on the 18th has been agreed so that European clubs can play on the weekend of November 12 and 13 before releasing their players in the 32 of the World Cup.
The final will be played on a Sunday which is Qatar’s National Day, leaving a full week for players to return to clubs before the Premier League plays its classic Boxing Day matches on December 26.
Qatar has come forward to host a promising generation of state-of-the-art stadium cooling in June-July to triumph over the heat that is expected to triumph by forty-five degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) at the first World Cup held in the Middle East.
In December 2010, Qatar won a moot contest by defeating the United States 14-8 in a final round of voting through FIFA’s executive committee.
More than 4 years later, FIFA moved the tournament to dates when temperatures are expected to hover around 25 to 30 degrees C (77 to 86 degrees F).
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