When is the next World Cup in Qatar and why is it in winter?
It might be a bit soon to already be talking about the next World Cup given the European Championship has just finished but football is a relentless sport and its hard to stop the juggernaut once it gets momentum. We all saw during the coronavirus pandemic how quickly they were able to get the sport back up and running again  even if much of society was still at a virtual standstill due to case numbers of the virus. Qatar is up next in 2022. The World Cup is being held there in winter when it will still be hot, and the timing will also cause disruption to the regular football calendar given its being held outside the usual June/July window. Read more: Best England anthems and football songs from World in Motion to Sweet Caroline  All that being said, there is still a potential football tournament to be won  so heres everything we know about the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The opening game of the next World Cup will be held on Monday, November 21 2022, with the final taking place on Sunday, December 18 of the same year. It will be the first World Cup to be held in the Middle East and is just the second one to be held in Asia, after the 2002 World Cup co-hosted by Japan and South Korea. There are obviously normally two full years between the Euros being held and the World Cup starting  but given the delayed European Championship and the fact that the Qatar World Cup is being held in winter due to the high summer temperatures, there will only be 16 months between these two tournaments. As mentioned above, it has a lot to do with the climate of the Middle Eastern country. Summer temperatures reach a peak of around 50C  when the tournament would normally be held  and when Qatar were making their bid for the tournament they promised to build fully air-conditioned stadia to ensure that players did not get too hot while playing the game. However, after they already won the rights to host the tournament, the organisers asked to switch the dates to winter and FIFA quickly obliged.