The 2022 Qatar World Cup will be held in winter
Back in November, FIFA general secretary Jerome Valkce announced that the organization was close to narrowing down the dates to two options, November-December or January-February. According to Wahl, they're going with the former.
Qatar originally promised to hold the tournament in the summer with the help of space-age cooling technologies that would lower the temperature from 120 degrees to 80 degrees inside the stadiums. Those technologies remain untested with seven years to go, and now the plan has been abandoned.
Qatar's bid, which was centered around a June/July World Cup, beat out the U.S.'s bid in 2010.
A November-December World Cup would not conflict with the 2022 Olympics, but it will still cause a host of problems. European leagues will have to completely reschedule their seasons. In the U.S., the tournament will conflict with the NFL, NBA, and NHL seasons.
Fox, which previously expressed displeasure at a winter 2022 World Cup, was recently awarded the rights to the 2026 World Cup without competitive bidding from networks like ESPN and NBC.