Ancelotti: ‘no problem’ playing World Cup 2022 in winter

European football teams will not have a problem with Qatar’s World Cup 2022 being played in winter, Real Madrid’s Coach Carlo Ancelotti told Al Arabiya News Channel in an interview aired on Friday.

“To play the World Cup, there is no problem for the European teams. We can have a break in winter with no problem,” Ancelotti told Al Arabiya News Channel in Dubai.

FIFA secretary General Jerome Valcke said on Wednesday that the 2022 World Cup in Qatar will not be played in the summer months.

“The dates of the World Cup will not be in June or July. I think it will be played between Nov. 15 and Jan. 15 the latest,” he told France Inter Radio.

“If you play between November 15 and, let’s say, the end of December, it’s the time when the weather is the most favorable,” Valcke added.

“You play with a temperature equivalent to that of a rather hot spring in Europe, you play with a temperature of 25 degrees (Celsius), which is perfect to play football.”

Ancelotti said a winter World Cup in Qatar would be “fantastic.”

“You have good infrastructure, fantastic stadiums. There will be the World Cup here in 2022 and it will be a fantastic World Cup because the organization here is at the top,” he added.

Ancelotti also spoke about his team, Real Madrid, saying it does not need to sign new strikers in the January transfer window in order to catch up with FC Barcelona at the top of the Spanish league.

Real Madrid has enough good strikers and does not need to sign any new ones in the January transfer windown, coach Carlo Ancelotti told Al Arabiya News Channel on Friday.

“In La Liga we are five points behind but I think we have the hope to have a good second part of the season to reach top of La Liga,” the Italian coach said.

“The reality is that we have fantastic strikers not only Benzema but there is also Ronaldo. We are trying to give more opportunity to young players and so we don’t need a striker. This team has the ability to score a lot of goals,” Ancelotti said.

“We had some problems defensively the first part of this season but we need to improve that,” he added, before stressing again: “We do not need a striker because the power of our strikers is fantastic.”

Asked: do you still miss Mesut Ozil? Ancelotti said: “No...If we miss him that means we did a mistake that we gave him the possibility to leave the club. So I chose to keep Di Maria. Maybe Di Maria maybe has less ability than Ozil but he has more team players.