[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Interesting, Danny.
We shouldn't forget that it's the WORLD Cup, and not just designed for us in Europe/S.America, but  World Cups and Summer Olympics are ALWAYS played out in the Summer months.

Not quite true. Every time the World Cup is held in June/July in South America (or South Africa, as was the case in 2010) it's their winter, and comes in the middle of their domestic seasons. We Europeans just expect them to drop everything, hold a World Cup and fit their seasons around the World Cup.

That's a fair point, but it's also something South Americans have accepted without protest (as far as I'm aware) for 80 years or so.

Chris Lepkowski wrote an amusing post on Twitter earlier along the lines of "can't wait to switch the Christmas tree on, put the tinsel up and watch UAE vs Bulgaria".  That pretty much sums it up for me.  Logically and rationally, there's no reason the World Cup shouldn't be held in November and December - there's no reason the early rounds of the FA Cup couldn't be played over summer and the final held at Christmas while you're at it - but it completely flies in the face of all history and tradition, and those are powerful emotional ties.

John Oliver got it spot on when he said if football is his religion, then FIFA is the Catholic Church.  No matter how much you dress up some of their decisions and policies, or try and believe they actually have something other than personal gain at heart, the facts sadly speak for themselves.  What I see here is footballing tradition being swept aside not for the greater good of the sport, which would at least be tolerable, but for the convenience of some very rich men who are getting even richer as we speak.