The 2022 World Cup is set to start a day earlier than planned with FIFA expected to move Qatar’s opening game to Sunday, Nov. 20.
The proposal, with agreement from both countries and CONMEBOL, the South American confederation, is for Qatar vs. Ecuador to move forward one day, with a kickoff time of 7 p.m. local (4 p.m. GMT, 11 a.m. ET). It will be the only match played on the Sunday and will extend the tournament to 29 days.
In the original schedule, the hosts’ first match was due to be the third game on Monday, kicking off at 7 p.m. local time, effectively meaning there would be an opening ceremony after the tournament had kicked off. Sources told ESPN earlier this year that Qatar initially requested to have a later kickoff on Nov. 21 because the emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, insisted on having a huge fireworks display before his country’s opening match and an afternoon kickoff would have severely reduced its visual impact.
Moving the game to Sunday will give Qatar the chance to showcase the World Cup and have the opening ceremony as a standalone event._
BREAKING: The World Cup in Qatar could start one day earlier than scheduled with FIFA looking at a plan to let the host nation play Ecuador on Nov. 20, a person familiar with the proposal tells @AP. https://t.co/dsjmGPNevn
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 10, 2022
FIFA released the fixtures and kick-off times for the 2022 World Cup on April Fools’ Day.
132 days later, it has realised that having the Opening Ceremony before the third game wasn’t such a great idea. https://t.co/tCrd4zGDhR
— Dale Johnson (@DaleJohnsonESPN) August 10, 2022