Expert: Fifa Should Consider Playing World Cup Final at 9AM

Extreme weather during the Club World Cup in the United States this summer means Fifa should think about playing the men’s World Cup final at 9am next year.

That’s from Professor Mike Tipton of Portsmouth University, a leading specialist on the effect of extreme temperature on the human body, when asked how football’s governing body should handle a heatwave at next year’s tournament.

Tipton himself has been struck by the brutal conditions that players have been exposed to in some matches at the Club World Cup in the US, and which have underlined the potential threat facing Fifa’s 2026 showpiece when it returns to the same country at the same time of year.

Last week saw the summer’s first major heatwave descend on eastern North America, with dozens of people hospitalised for heat-related illnesses.

In New York on June 24, for instance, the temperature rocketed to 39C – a record for June.