6 Reasons Why the World Cup Should Be Taken Away from Qatar

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Mikhail Metzel/Associated Press

Whenever a heatwave hits a Western country unused to such temperatures, an enterprising TV news crew will almost inevitably attempt to fry an egg on a car bonnet, or perhaps even the pavement.

If they try that trick in Qatar, they could open up a cafe selling fried egg sandwiches to passing Brits, for the heat will, as you know by now, be absolutely unbearable.

When they pitched for the tournament, the Qatari bid featured all sorts of harebrained schemes, including air conditioning for the grounds and floating ‘solar clouds’ that would shade the pitch, as reported by The Daily Mail. Somewhat inevitably, these turned out to be unworkable, so if the tournament is to be played at the traditional, promised time of year, it will be in heat that averages 105 degrees Fahrenheit, as per Al Jazeera.

The effects of making people play sport in conditions like that should be obvious, but for an example of what might happen, one only has to turn to the Australian Open this year, when play had to be called off on several occasions after temperatures topped that 105 degrees, and Britain’s Jamie Murray had to be treated for heatstroke, as The Guardian reported.

Unlike in tennis, FIFA has no policy for extreme weather conditions at its tournaments, instead merely advising players to drink plenty of water. Unfortunately, they didn’t also pass on the sage wisdom that players should also probably breathe in and out if they wanted to stay running around.

Some may say that World Cups have been played in extreme heat before, and they have, not least in Mexico and assorted South American countries. However, the game is so much quicker, so much more athletic now, that this sort of heat is simply dangerous.