The FIFA World Cup is a professional association football tournament held between national football teams. Organized by FIFA, the tournament, held every four years, was first played in 1930 in Uruguay and has been contested by 32 teams since the 1998 event. The tournament is contested with eight round-robin groups followed by a knockout round for 16 teams. The defending champions are the French national football team, who defeated the Croatia national football team 4–2 in the 2018 FIFA World Cup final.[18][19] The event is scheduled to take place under a reduced length, from 20 November to 18 December in Qatar.[21][22][23] Being held in Qatar, it is the first World Cup tournament to be held in the Arab world.[24] Spectators were not required to follow most COVID-19 pandemic restrictions such as social distancing, wearing masks, and negative tests.[25]
Schedule
Unlike previous FIFA World Cups, which are typically played in June and July, because of Qatar's intense summer heat and often fairly high humidity, [26][27][28] the 2022 World Cup is being played in November and December.[29][9] As a result, the World Cup is unusually staged in the middle of the seasons of domestic football leagues, which start in late July or August, including all the major European leagues, which have been obliged to incorporate extended breaks into their domestic schedules to accommodate the World Cup. Major European competitions have scheduled their respective competitions group matches to be played before the World Cup, to avoid playing group matches the following year.[30]
The match schedule was confirmed by FIFA in July 2020.[31] The group stage was set to begin on 21 November, with four matches every day. Later, the schedule was tweaked by moving the Qatar vs Ecuador game to 20 November, after Qatar successfully lobbied FIFA to allow their team to open the tournament.[32][33] The final will be played on 18 December 2022, National Day, at Lu sail Iconic Stadium.[34][31]
The matches for each group were allocated to the following stadiums:[34]
Groups A, B, E, F: Al Bayt Stadium, Khalifa International Stadium, Al Thumama Stadium, Ahmad bin Ali Stadium
Groups C, D, G, H: Lu sail Iconic Stadium, Stadium 974, Education City Stadium, Al Janoub Stadium
FIFA confirmed the group stage venue and kick-off times on 1 April 2022, following the draw.[35][36] On 11 August, it was confirmed that Qatar vs Ecuador had been brought forward one day, now becoming the tournament's opening match, while Senegal vs Netherlands, which would have opened the tournament under the original schedule, had been reallocated to the freed-up times lot.[37]
Prize money
In April 2022, FIFA announced the prizes for all participating nations. Each qualified team will receive $1.5 million before the competition to cover preparation costs, with each team receiving at least $9 million in prize money. This editions' total prize pool will be $440 million, $40 million greater than the prize pool of the previous tournament.[38]
Rules
The tournament will feature new substitution rules where teams may make up to five substitutions in normal time, and an additional substitution in extra time.[40][41][42] In addition, it will be the first World Cup to feature concussion substitutions, where each team is permitted to use a maximum of one concussion substitute during a match. A concussion substitution does not count towards a team's quota of regular substitutions.[43] Iranian goalkeeper Alireza became the first concussion substitute in World Cup history, being taken off in his country's opening match against England.[44]
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