"The football season should run from March till October"

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

They have been thinking about having a twelve month season, where ONLY the FIFA tournaments would be permanent fixtures, that individual associations would have to work around

Blimey!

 

[Everest]

It's things like this that the FACEPALM is made for

Blatter's so fecking stupid he can't even do a proper facepalm

 

[GT49er]

Blatter should have his genitals forcibly inserted into a blender. Mind you, even then he'd still produce something that no-one else would want

 

[beorhthelm]

i dont get it. whats the purpose? and how do you fit 10 months of fixtures into 9 months? does he actually know anything about football? this is so far fetched, it must surely be a mis-quote.

 

[Philzo-93]

Just because Blatter gave that f***ing shithole of a country called Qatar, the world cup doesn't mean they should move our seasons. Blatter do one.

Platini, stop eating Blatters shit whilst he eats the Russians and the Qataris' shit too.

f***ing joke.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Just because Blatter gave that f***ing shithole of a country called Qatar, the world cup doesn't mean they should move our seasons. Blatter do one.

Platini, stop eating Blatters shit whilst he eats the Russians and the Qataris' shit too.

f***ing joke.

Hopefully there will be a mass Olympics-style boycott by countries or indeed continents not prepared to shift the footballing world on its axis to accomodate the utterly corrupt selection of Qatar as a venue. Time for Blatter and his cronies to be put out to grass.

 

[Gwylan]

Hopefully there will be a mass Olympics-style boycott by countries or indeed continents not prepared to shift the footballing world on its axis to accomodate the utterly corrupt selection of Qatar as a venue. Time for Blatter and his cronies to be put out to grass.

I don't see why there should be a boycott. We're seeing this through English eyes but for the rest of the world, a January/February WC would work rather well. It would certainly suit southern hemisphere countries (as can be seen by the fact that the Africa cup is in winter), would suit the US as it's mid-season for them, suit eastern Europe as they have a long winter break and would suit the Middle East, for temperature reasons. I don't know about Asia but that little lot are clearly not going to complain.

In fact, the only part of the world really put out by a winter WC is western Europe and even then, most countries have a winter break so could probably come up with a workaround. The only countries really affected are England and Scotland - and as we saw from the 2018 vote, the lavatory attendant at FIFA HQ probably has more influence with the FIFA hierarchy than the English FA.

 

[Cian]

How would you actually realign the seasons to start in March when the current ones haven't even finished by then? The seasons obviously can't overlap. So would there need to be a nine month gap between the last old-style season and the first new-style season to allow for a March start?

How the FAI handled it was an "intermediate season" that started very shortly after the old one ended. Problem is that it was shortened by changing from 4 or 3 cycles of games to 2 - in England you'd need to change to 1 cycle only which could create some serious friction over who gets to play where.

 

[Austrian Gull]

Why would the rest of the world give a monkey's about clashing with the cricket season?

It's like saying we shouldn't play football in the winter because it would be unfair on people who go to watch ice hockey.

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

Playing devil's advocate here, but what is actually wrong with the principle of playing the season from March to October.

Granted there are transitional issues and the actual length of the season would be shorter but football matches are played virtually all year round anyway so why shouldn't they switch the start dates if in the long run it is better?

 

[sten_super]

I don't see why there should be a boycott. We're seeing this through English eyes but for the rest of the world, a January/February WC would work rather well. It would certainly suit southern hemisphere countries (as can be seen by the fact that the Africa cup is in winter), would suit the US as it's mid-season for them, suit eastern Europe as they have a long winter break and would suit the Middle East, for temperature reasons. I don't know about Asia but that little lot are clearly not going to complain.

In fact, the only part of the world really put out by a winter WC is western Europe and even then, most countries have a winter break so could probably come up with a workaround. The only countries really affected are England and Scotland - and as we saw from the 2018 vote, the lavatory attendant at FIFA HQ probably has more influence with the FIFA hierarchy than the English FA.

I agree that it would make the timetabling of the World Cup a lot easier. However surely by the same token it would have a major impact upon the development of domestic football in those regions that, as you have just pointed out, cannot play football in the summer?

Unfortunately, there is no easy option, and I don't think it's possible to have a fully harmonised calendar across the globe. Putting aside the ridiculous decision to give the WC to Qatar, at some point it was bound to go to a country that has prohibitively hot summers; perhaps we simply need to get used to the idea that these major international championships are football's flagship events, and domestic football will need to be moved occasionally to fit around them.

 

[BigGully]

Maybe its a good idea to see it through our own eyes and fight for something that is in our own interest.

We seem to have lost that skill and been a bit passive of late ;-)

Is it reasonable for Britain to run the season this way ?

I would say not for many of the reasons already mentioned.

So what if it is good for the Southern Hemisphere we are the Northern Hemisphere therefore we should not curtail to the needs of their fans and sporting culture ahead of our own.

 

[Scotty Mac]

having attended an early september fixture in bordeaux which was easily the hottest i have ever been in my life, i would love to see how the french league, particularly the southern clubs would cope playing through the even hotter months proceeding it

 

[Gwylan]

Maybe its a good idea to see it through our own eyes and fight for something that is in our own interest.

We seem to have lost that skill and been a bit passive of late ;-)

Is it reasonable for Britain to run the season this way ?

I would say not for many of the reasons already mentioned.

So what if it is good for the Southern Hemisphere we are the Northern Hemisphere therefore we should not curtail to the needs of their fans and sporting culture ahead of our own.

I'm not disputing that it's not in our interest to keep the status quo. What I was querying is why there should be a mass boycott of something in support of the British point of view? I still don't see why the likes of Argentina or Angola, say, should inconvenience themselves by joining in a mass boycott as Tom Hark suggested they might do.

 

[BigGully]

I wouldnt expect a mass boycott either.

I am not sure how FIFA is funded, but again I would expect we remain a net contributor and we seem to benefit little from this.

So we would need to fight for our fans and footballing culture ahead whimsical change from an organisation that looks at us with such indifference.