The Saudi Arabian Football Federation put forth its proposal to conduct a feasibility study of conducting the elite tournament every two years instead of the conventional gap of four years. After getting an overwhelming majority in FIFA’s annual congress on Friday, the organization led by Gianni Infantino has decided to review the same.
The flagship tournament is played every four years for the fans to enjoy and support their national team since its inception in 1930 except for the period during WWII. The same has been the case for the women’s competition since 1991.
However, during FIFA’s annual congress on Friday, the SAFF put forth a proposal to study the feasibility of the tournament, if conducted once in two years.
“We believe the future of football is at a critical juncture. The many issues that football has faced have now been further exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic,”
said SAFF president Yasser Al-Misehal.
The president of FIFA emphasized that the proposal was “eloquent and detailed”, with 166 national federations voting in favour and with 22 voting against.
Having said that, this wasn’t the first time such an idea was announced. Former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger put forth this suggestion earlier this year. If we backtrack to the year 1999, Sepp Blatter, who was the president of FIFA then, propagated the same idea to ‘boost national team football’ but didn’t get much attention.
When asked about what he thinks of the proposal, Infantino replied:
“It doesn’t matter right now what I think, it matters what results the study is coming up with,”
“We have to go into this study with an open mind… we know about the value of the World Cup believe me, we know as well about the impact that the World Cup can have.”
However, he also questioned the efficacy of the current system of qualifiers which happens throughout a year before the inception of the tournament.
“Do we really think this is the right way for football when we are hearing that fans say they want more meaningful games, less meaningless games, all of these points have to be considered.
We will discuss it, we will analyze it but we will, in all discussions, put the sporting element as a priority not the commercial element,”
he said
The 2022 FIFA World Cup is scheduled from 21st November to 18th December 2022 in Qatar which also marks the 22nd edition of the tournament.
