COVID-19 Pandemic Shrinks Football Season in Philippines

 

The corona virus chaos has affected the sports world, especially football very hard. Since it is a Body contact game, it poses a high chance that one player infected with COVID-19 will spread the infection to other players. Thus many of the nations have postponed their football leagues.


The international football tournaments have also been postponed or are running without any spectators in the gallery. In these circumstances, the Philippine football authorities have taken a nice measure to continue their league. They have shrunk the football league fixture and have brought it down to only 2 weeks. After a long pause in the league since March, they have now decided to resume the matches. But as there are some global instructions on the organization of tournaments, the matches will be played behind closed doors. The footballers also will have to stay inside the bio bubble so that they don’t get infected by any means.
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Highlights of Upcoming World Cup 2022

 

The qualification rounds for World Cup 2022 are about to commence from September 2020 as the pandemic restrictions start to abate across the world. The 2022 World Cup would be the 22nd edition. It is a quadrennial championship of the men’s international football association that would be contested by national teams that are members of FIFA. 

The scheduled venues are in Qatar which is the first Muslim country and of the Arab world to host this world tournament. It is also the second World Cup to be held in Asia after the 2002 tournament that was held in Japan and South Korea. This edition would include 32 teams, though a proposition had been put in for expanding the same top 48 teams. France is the reigning world champions who would be defending the cup. 

This World Cup also deviates from the usual norm of being held in the summer months. The tournament is scheduled for the winter months, to start in late November and to go on till mid of December. The time frame has been reduced as well to 28 days with the final to be held on Qatar National Day, that of 18th December 2022.

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Roberto Martinez extends contract with Belgian team

 

Roberto Martinez contract with Belgium has been extended and he will be staying at the team till the World Cup 2022. His contract with Belgium was to expire after Euro 2020 but with the suspension of football, activity has led the campaign to be postponed to 2021.

Before being the manager of Belgium National Football team he has coached clubs like Everton, Wigan and Swansea. He signed the contract with the team on 2016 and has led them in World Cup 2018where they were placed in the third position by defeating England on the playoff. With the extension,of the contract, he will be leading one of the best teams whichconsist of golden players of the present into two major tournaments of the football world.

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Sustainable Floating Hotels Coming Up at Qatar

The Losail International Stadium, located at the Qetaifan North Island of the Lusail City in Qatar is going to host the opening as well as the final game of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In this regard, the Sigge Architects and ADMARES are in process to develop 16 floating hotels that will serve all the fans and tourists coming to Qatar for the games. The Qetaifan North Island is the primary waterfront destination of the city. It has been planned to provide all the needs and requirements of the tourists and the masses with facilities, projects, and activities for entertainment along with the fan villages in course of the tournament. This includes floating hotels as well.

The hosting north island spans roughly over 1.3 million square meters that include 830,000 square meters comprising seven beaches and other attractions. The floating hotels have come up as a sustainable solution that will have less impact on the ecological system. The hotels can accommodate a lot of people. ADMARES is famous for making real estate on the water that is valuable and sustainable. They generate structures that are floating and supported by piles in an innovative way. Recently, this real estate company has collaborated with an architect firm from Finland, the Sigge Architects, just for making hotels in Qatar, especially for the FIFA World Cup 2022.

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FIFA Confirmed the Dates for World Cup 2020

FIFA has finalized and announced the schedule for World Cup 2022. In case you have been expecting some bad news, it is probably worse than what you have imagined it to be. The competition is going to take place in Qatar and it is going to start on 21st November 2022 and ended on 18th December. This is going to be the shortest tournament since 1978 when the competition consisted of just 16 teams. It is only half of the number of teams in the tournament right now.

The decision to move the dates from the time to summer to winter had been finalized in spite of the repeated objections from the prime football team of Europe which includes the Premier League. They had argued that it is going to disrupt the busy club season. As a matter of fact, the draft schedules of the year have already been circulated to all football clubs.

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FIFA PRESIDENT DISAPPOINTED WITH KOREAN GAME

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has revealed his displeasure at the level of attendance at the World Cup qualifier between North and South Korea. The match which was played at Pyongyang Kim II Sung Stadium was played to an empty stadium.

The match, which saw a few select officials in the match, was watched by Infantino. The FIFA president revealed later on FIFA website that he was looking forward to crowds in the stands for the historic match but was disappointed to see empty stands.

North Korea also frustrated South Korean officials and TV companies who were unable to broadcast the match live. Fans had to follow the match on the internet due to breakdown in logistics regarding access and visa for foreign journalists.

FIFA and AFC were able to broadcast the game via online text commentary posted on their websites which was a disappointment to many.

The match was the first match between both nations in Pyongyang and was seen as a historic milestone for both countries technically at war.

There have been increasing tensions in recent weeks with North Korea testing missiles after a breakdown of US-led talks regarding its weapons program.

The local North Korean media did not have much enthusiasm regarding the game with a short summary of the game released by the agency.

The game ended in a stalemate with both sides playing a conservative game according to match reports from the game.  The return leg will be held in Seoul in November.

FIFA revealed after the game that they will continue to pursue different avenues towards bringing fair play to the sport.

The World governing body had earlier secured an unprecedented agreement with the Iranian government for women to watch football games. It remains to be seen whether this would apply to hermit countries like North Korea.

QATAR REVEALS UPDATES ON STADIUMS

The Supreme Committee on Delivery and Legacy, responsible for organizing the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, has published live images that show remarkable progress at Al-Bayt Stadium in the city of Jor.

Al-Bayt is one of eight stadiums that will host the World Cup matches, of which two are ready: Al-Janoub and KhalifaInternational. Its roof measures around 1600 tons, equivalent to 380 half-size cars. 

Each of the pillars is 94.4 meters and weighs 82 to 104 tons. According to safety regulations, the pillars were raised and installed in stable weather conditions.

The Committee aspires to leave both the inhabitants of the city and those of the country a beneficial legacy, Al-Bayt offers commercial and recreational facilities. After 2022, the capacity of the land will be reduced to 30 thousand seats instead of 60.

 The upper part will be converted to a hotel and the chairs of this part will be donated to countries that lack sports infrastructure. The stadium is scheduled to open at the end of 2019.

Meanwhile, the pace of work at the iconic Lusail Stadium continues quickly, where both the inaugural and the final match will take place, as well, apart from both matches, Lusail will host matches of different rounds.

It is worth mentioning that the capacity of the stadium will fit 80 thousand spectators, the highest capacity of all of these in the world stadiums in Qatar.

As for the city of Lusail, the founder of QatarJassim bin Mohammed Al Thani lived there, at the beginning of the last century. Since then   the city hasenjoyed specialrecognition. 

The stadium design will housea mix between ancient and modern Islamic architecture. Its facade is adorned by the Arabic style designed in a creative way that allows the sun’s rays to enter the interior in an impressive way. 

Asian Qualifiers 2022 FIFA Ready to Go

The top Asia football teams are very soon going to begin their quest for the FIFA World Cup 2022. The FIFA World Cup 2022 is going to take place in Qatar. The team would come to know their rivals round 2 of Asian Qualifiers Round. The schedule for the same will be declared in the next month.

In round two, around 40 teams will take part and they will be divided into five teams of eight groups. All the teams will take part in the double round robin format the format is popularly known as “home and away”. They will compete from 5th September 2019 to 9th June 2020. This news has been circulated by AFC on Monday.
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FIFA RANKINGS: BELGIUM STILL NUMBER ONE

FIFA have released the latest FIFA rankings with Belgium still holding strong at the summit ahead of World Cup Winners France. The rankings see little changes in the top three spots as Brazil still retains the third spot. One major change is with World Cup semi-finalists England moving a spot into fourth ahead of losing World Cup finalists Croatia.

This recent move up for the Three Lions cisco as a result of convincing victories in the European 2020 qualifiers against the Czech Republic and Montenegro. The remaining slots in the top 10 lost is dominated by European clubs with only Uruguay stopping the tide in 6th.
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Qatar Faces Embargo before the World Cup

A feasibility study is usually done by FIFA when it considers the bids that different countries place for hosting the World Cup. In this study for Qatar, the hosting nation for World Cup 2022, it was found that, of the five countries that surround Qatar, three of them would not play co-hosts. These are Bahrain, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. These countries need to be ruled out as co-hosts. This leaves only Kuwait and Oman with whom Qatar can share the matches. However, these countries might not want to participate in the UAE and Saudi Arabia are antagonized by their actions. After all, they are bigger brothers to these nations and they are all part of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The final decision would be taken by the FIFA Congress in June when they meet for the Paris convention. The three countries who have turned foes for Qatar have engaged themselves in legal and diplomatic battles that are acrimonious. Qatar has been spending a lot of resources and time to gain global opinions. Countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia are also impacted by this but they have larger economies of scale to their advantage. Qatar is a speck on the global map. The embargo was put on June 2017, mainly because it has been sponsoring terrorist individuals and groups. For such reasons, the country is being isolated in this region. Qatar is, however, trying to show its bravery and ensuring that the World Cup event would not be harmed. They are working on infrastructure and other preparations. The country is not sparing money and effort for building hotels, roads, stadiums and subway systems.
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