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Michel Platini,
UEFA president and a FIFA executive committee member, said there was
“something beautiful” about the philosophy behind the decision to award
the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar.

He added that there
was “nothing illogical” about the Qatar decision, arguing the Middle
East had been rejected as hosts several times in the past.

The Frenchman,
however, pondered alternatives to the current voting system in which
World Cup hosts are chosen by the executive committee, which currently
consists of 22 members.

Platini said he
felt that FIFA’s executive committee had been won over by the thought
of taking the World Cup to new regions as he was quizzed about last
week’s vote in Zurich.

“Russia asked why
they didn’t have the right to organise the World Cup and said it had
already been held 10 times in Western Europe,”

New frontiers

Platini told
reporters. “I think maybe the executive committee were sensitive to
this.” “The same thing applies to Qatar and the Arab world. Morocco has
applied to host the World Cup four times and lost, Egypt have also
failed and Qatar asked when will the Middle East have this opportunity?

“Maybe, the members
of the executive committee thought it was a good opportunity to go to
that part of the world once and for all, a region that has never hosted
the World Cup, so if we’re talking about developing football worldwide,
which is ultimately the goal of institutions such as FIFA or if we’re
talking about European football, which is the goal of UEFA, well it’s
something beautiful.

“That doesn’t mean
that UEFA has different objectives, we voted for Poland and Ukraine (as
Euro 2012 hosts).” He added: “We opened new frontiers by taking the
World Cup to Africa and maybe the executive committee felt it was time
to open more new frontiers. There was nothing illogical about this.”
Qatar was awarded the World Cup despite worries about the fierce summer
heat, which it says will be countered by the use of air-conditioned
stadiums.

“In the 1994 World
Cup in the United States, the temperature in Dallas, if I’m not
mistaken, was 45 Celsius and nobody criticized us at the time,” said
Platini.

“It’s a long time
and we’re talking about this with (FIFA president Sepp) Mr Blatter.”
Platini said that holding the tournament in January, the Qatari winter,
could be an alternative as well as staging some games in neighbouring
countries.

“I agree, football in the Gulf in January that would be easier than June, why not, it’s possible.

“However, many
things would have to be changed in the calendar, what would we do to
re-organize ourselves and how much rest time would be given to the
players?

Would we have
February off and re-start the season in March?” Platini also pondered
the suggestion that the FIFA Congress — where representatives of
FIFA’s 208 member federations have a direct vote — could choose the
World Cup hosts, rather than the executive committee.

“The difference is that South America only has 10 votes, so maybe they would never get the World Cup,” he said.

“I think we can think about this issue, maybe we can elaborate a
different system.” “The next time we will do this will be in 10 years’
time.”