NYON, Switzerland: FIFA Vice President Michel Platini wants Qatar to share 2022 World Cup hosting duties with its Gulf neighbors. Platini, who is also president of UEFA, did not specify which other countries Qatar could invite to stage matches, but said there was time to reach agreements. “I hope it will be a World Cup of the Gulf,” Platini said. “If it is in 11 years, I think we need political people, but I think so.” The idea of Qatar sharing the World Cup was raised by FIFA President Sepp Blatter within days of the Dec. 2 decision to send the 2022 tournament to the small nation. Platini also has said he agrees with moving the tournament to January to avoid Qatar's extreme desert heat in summer. As chairman of the French organizing committee for the 1998 World Cup, Platini said he had altered some plans after winning hosting rights. “Who will remember the words in 12 years?” Platini said Tuesday at an informal briefing. “In 12 years everybody will be happy to have a very well organized World Cup and not remember what's happened before.” Qatar football leader Mohamed Bin Hammam, a member of FIFA's executive committee, has advocated waiting until 2018 before discussing changes to the hosting plan. In a wide-ranging and relaxed 40-minute session, Platini confirmed that taking the World Cup to so-called “new lands” of Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022 was the decisive argument - and that Qatar's first lady had been persuasive. “When the wife of the Emir says, ‘When will you come to the Middle East? When will you come to the Arabian people? It's not possible for us to have the World Cup? Tell me why,”' Platini explained. Since the vote in Zurich, losing candidates including England, Australia and the United States have questioned why FIFA never told them a developed western-style nation would not win. 2022 IOC clash IOC President Jacques Rogge says the Olympic body and FIFA should hold “sensible discussions” to avoid a clash between the 2022 Winter Olympics and World Cup if the Qatar tournament is switched from the summer to winter months. Rogge says relations with Sepp Blatter are “excellent” after the FIFA president called him to apologize for making derogatory comments about the IOC last week. Iran coach against idea If FIFA wants to share the 2022 World Cup around the Gulf States it should re-open the bidding process and invite the countries who failed to land the Finals to bid again, Iran coach Afshin Ghotbi told Reuters Thursday. Ghotbi, an Iranian-American citizen and one of the most influential and respected coaches in Asia, said in an interview he was not in favor of comments made by UEFA President Michel Platini Wednesday that the tournament could now be co-hosted. “I think if they are now talking about sharing it with other countries, I think it is very unfair to the United States, to Australia, all the other countries that were bidding at the same time,” he said in an interview during the Asian Cup. “Now you are changing the landscape. My feeling is if they want to take a decision on that then they should go back to the bidding countries and ask them to bid again. “Qatar has shown it can host it, so it should be here and it should be in the winter time - that is a logical change, but it is not fair to talk about changing the venues at this stage.”
