Doha, Qatar- Qatar FIFA World Cup 2022 is set to kick off a day earlier than scheduled with the first match set to take place on Sunday the 20th of November.
The opening match of the tournament was to be Senegal against the Netherlands at 10:00, earlier on Monday.
However, the administrative arm of the world governing body FIFA has submitted a proposal to move the Qatar game.
It followed discussions with Qatar and their opponents Ecuador, after receiving a request from the South American Confederation Conmebol.
The switch to a 20 November opening ceremony game would allow the Senegal-Netherlands match, scheduled for 1 pm local time on 21 November, to kick off later in the day. The Group B matches on that day, which also includes the United States vs Wales, would be unaffected.
In recent years, the World Cup host nation has appeared in the tournament’s first match, as the headliner in the monthlong event’s elaborate opening ceremony, but this year, in a break with that tradition, organizers took the unusual step of scheduling Qatar’s first game as the third of four matches on a busy first day of competition on Nov. 21.
Now a proposal to move Qatar’s game to November 20 has been sent to the most senior officials of FIFA. Those officials, a group that includes the leaders of soccer’s six global Confederations and the FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, will decide whether or not to approve it.
“It has been a longstanding tradition to mark the start of the FIFA World Cup with an opening ceremony on the occasion of the first match featuring either the hosts or the defending champions, a factor that is considered to have significant value from a ceremonial, cultural and commercial point of view.
As the tournament approaches, the FIFA administration is now fully aware of the various sporting, operational, commercial and legal implications of this uniquely compressed schedule.
The FIFA administration has assessed the commercial and legal implications of the proposal including the impact on contractual commitments across media rights, sponsorship, and ticketing and hospitality as well as the impact on travelling fans, and has determined that any risk is sufficiently outweighed by the value and benefits of the proposals,” said FIFA.
Should the switch of the opening match be approved, overseas ticket-holders who had planned to attend would face the potential challenge of changing their travel plans and rebooking hotel rooms, and any players competing in the European Leagues.
Nevertheless, according to a close source to the proposal, the switch could be confirmed as early as Thursday and the plan was to ensure that fans did not have to pay for any changes to flights or accommodation.
