FA chairman David Bernstein condemns plans for winter World Cup in 2022

On the 07/06/2013, chairman of the Football Association (ENG) David Bernstein said that any plans to move the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to winter are "fundamentally flawed".

Concerns have been raised about Qatar's summer heat, and many leading figures in football, including FIFA president Sepp Blatter, have called for the tournament to be re-arranged.

But Berstein, who is due to step down as FA chairman next month fears that moving the tournament to winter would seriously disrupt European domestic leagues.

He said: "I personally believe that the domestic league season should remain more or less the way it is now, running from August to May. I think football is a winter game, that the public greatly enjoy their football through the winter and that we should think very carefully before we take football away from the public in the winter."

Qatar defeated bids from South Korea, Japan, Australia and the United States when it was awarded the competition in 2010, while England were unsuccessful in their bid for the 2018 tournament, which went to Russia.