Football: 'COVID will be defeated' - Infantino

FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, expected stadiums to be full when the World Cup opens in Qatar in November 2022. "We will have full stadiums. We must have this ... COVID will be defeated by then or we will have learnt to live with it.,” he said in a World Health Organization news conference. Delays in the 2022 World Cup qualifying program in most continents led FIFA last year to create new games dates next January. They will help make up the backlog in an increasingly tight schedule with broadcasting rights already sold. In Asia, 40 national teams are due to resume qualifying groups that last played in November 2019. A total of 135 teams are due to play World Cup qualifiers next month, and 48 more have preliminary games for the 2022 African Cup of Nations.