Qatar World Cup too hot to handle

There are a lot of good reasons why many consider FIFA president Sepp Blatter and the cronies who run the organization governing world soccer as the most corrupt in sports.

Blatter & Co. consistently have decisions that make the International Olympic Committee and the NCAA amateur look like pickpockets in the shadowy world of backroom deals.

Not too long after FIFA announced in 2010 that Qatar would get the 2022 World Cup, becoming the first Middle East nation to host, rumors started that the tiny nation about the size of Connecticut and a total population just slightly more than that of Philadelphia had bought the most prestigious sporting event in the world by slipping oil money under the table and into secret banking accounts.

In May, 2011, a charge of corruption over the bid was made. An internal investigation run by FIFA cleared FIFA of any wrongdoing.

Still, few who have followed FIFA believe the process was clean.

On Sunday, Blatter added more controversy to the Qatar World Cup by announcing that he expected the executive committee to approve a move of the 2022 World Cup from its normal summer period because of the oppressive heat in Qatar at that time.

This raises another question about the awarding of the Cup.

"I would be very much such surprised, more than surprised, if the [executive committee] will not accept the principle you cannot play in the summer in Qatar," he said in an interview with the Associated Press.

And who did not know that when the bid was awarded to Qatar back in 2010? The Qatar summer having temperatures up to 120 degrees is not a recent phenomenon of global warming. It's been like that forever.

Qatar made a bid for a summer World Cup and it beat out the United States, Australia, Japan and South Korea in part because it assured everyone that the heat would not be an issue.

"Heat is not and will not be an issue," Qatar bid's chief executive, Hassan al-Thawadi, declared during the bidding presentation.

The Qatar 2022 bid's official site claimed: "Each of the five stadiums will harness the power of the sun's rays to provide a cool environment for players and fans by converting solar energy into electricity that will then be used to cool both fans and players at the stadiums. … Along with the stadiums, we plan to make the cooling technologies we've developed available to other countries in hot climates, so that they too can host major sporting events."

Qatar claimed this technology will keep temperatures on the playing pitch at around 82 degrees.

The most talked about alternative is for FIFA to move the 2022 World Cup later in the year, with Blatter suggesting November.

That has raised serious concerns for domestic leagues in Europe, such as the English Premier League, Germany's Bundesliga, Spain's La Liga, Italy's Serie A and many others in UEFA.

Most European Leagues have a schedule from August to May, and cutting a month out of that to send their best players to a World Cup would be a devastating financial hit.

When you add this issue to the huge ones that already existed because of Qatar's laws against the consumption of alcohol in public and homosexuality, plus the fact that Qatar does not officially recognize Israel, a member of FIFA, it raises questions about how the nation won the bid in the first place.