FIFA Could Take Qatar World Cup Nocturnal, Starting Matches at 1 AM

Playing day matches in the summer in Qatar will be untenable, with average highs breaching 100 degrees. For some reason, that factor was ignored during the bidding process. Now, FIFA must move the tournament or make it work.

Sepp Blatter has proposed moving the World Cup to November/December. That would irritate the European leagues. A move to January/February would conflict with both the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics. Either move would irritate television partners. FOX paid hundreds of millions for the broadcast rights to get summer programming, not programming that would compete with the business end of the football season.

Another proposed option could be to host all the games at night. The 1st matches could kick off at 7 PM and 10 PM, with the third kicking off at 1 AM the following morning. That option would suit Western TV schedules. Matches would kick off at noon, 3 PM and 6 PM ET in the States and 5 PM, 8 PM and 11 PM in Continental Europe.

But, perhaps we’re all worrying a bit too much about this. Eight years is plenty of time to get the artificial clouds operational.