The 2022 FIFA World Cup will be the 22nd FIFA World Cup, an international football tournament that is scheduled to take place in 2022 in Qatar. The competition is scheduled to take place in June and July, although proposals have been made for a winter season. The tournament will involve 32 national teams, including that of the host nation. This is the first time a country in the Middle East will host the World Cup.
The bidding procedure to host the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups began in January 2009, and national associations had until 2 February 2009 to register their interest. Initially, eleven bids were made for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, but Mexico later withdrew from proceedings, and Indonesia's bid was rejected by FIFA in February 2010 after the Indonesian government failed to submit a letter to support the bid. During the bidding process, all non-UEFA nations gradually withdrew from the 2018 bids, thus making the UEFA nations ineligible for the 2022 bid. As such, there were eventually five bids for the 2022 FIFA World Cup: Australia, Japan, Qatar, South Korea and the United States. The twenty-two member FIFA Executive Committee convened in Zürich on 2 December 2010 to vote to select the hosts of both tournaments. The decision to host the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, which was graded as having "high operational risk," generated criticism from media commentators, gay rights groups and American, Australian and English officials.