NUMBERS have never been more important in world football than those which, initially, lit up FIFA’s collective gaze and which are now plaguing the game’s international ruling body.

Let’s just see. Nine years might seem a long way off, but not if you’re, say, any world-class footballer currently in your teens or early twenties and with aspirations to represent your particular nation at the summit of international team football.

For in 2022 the World Cup finals are due to be held in the Middle Eastern authoritarian state of Qatar.

And if the tournament is played at its usual mid-summer schedule then those aforementioned young bucks will be straining their sinews and playing their socks off amid temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius, with the prospect of the mercury gauge advancing towards 50 degrees.

I just did not see why FIFA, in all their inestimable wisdom, did not go the whole hog-roast and decree the tournament be played in California’s Death Valley, scene of the highest recorded temperature on earth of 134 degrees Fahrenheit, or the Ethiopian ghost town of Dallol, which between 1960 and 1966 recorded an annual average temperature of 94 degrees.

None of those possible destinations were chosen, however, and not simply because they are remote territories with little infrastructure or hot-dog stands.

Besides the shimmering heat the one thing they have in common is that they have no money, whereas Qatar is, of course, an oil and natural gas-rich territory, which, even given – at the most diplomatic – its questionable human rights record – is rolling in the stuff. Well, its ruling Al Thani family is.

As if it was some surprise, FIFA are now thinking it might not be the best idea for the world’s footballers to be striving for the trophy amid temperatures more akin to frying your morning bacon and eggs.

So for months leading up to yesterday’s conclusion of a two-day conference by its executive committee FIFA proposed the 2022 tournament be played during the winter, even if that would be smack in the middle of domestic leagues across the world and even clashing with such other sports such as America’s Superbowl (groan) or the Winter Olympics.

Excuse me Mr FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who fell over himself to hand that year’s event to the Qataris, did you not think it might have been a tad warm in the Middle East during the summer?

The executive committee decided to set up a commission – hurrah – to look into moving the tournament to winter.

Its report will not be known until after next year’s World Cup and a decision on the tournament’s timing perhaps stayed until 2015 as the commission looks to find out the feelings of “our marketing and broadcast partners”.

Look FIFA, the problem is not the summer heat or the winter chill to be faced across Europe if the World Cup is played in Qatar.

It is the fact you gave the tournament in the first place to somewhere where you can boil your head simply by stepping out of your oil paid-for opulent apartment.

Yes, the Qataris may well have spent a lot of money in preparing their bid and then starting on the infrastructure for stadia, transport to and from etc, but just apply common sense and say sorry, the tournament will not be held in your country in 2022.

Grow some World Cup balls Mr Blatter and admit the giant-sized error made by chasing even more moolah to swell FIFA’s coffers.

If you were so wrapped up in a missionary zeal to extend football to wider horizons then why not give the World Cup to Egypt or Turkey.

Oh sorry, neither of those nations have loads of oil money.

As I said, it all boils down to numbers – the kerching variety.

STAYING with international football, Scotland was grossly insulted by ITV’s latest bout of myopic patriotism.

At the end of Celtic’s 1-0 defeat by Barcelona a scheduled interview with Celtic midfielder Charlie Mulgrew, who had missed a gilt-lined chance to level, was abruptly stopped before it even got started by the blimpish Adrian Chiles, announcing a trailer for England’s upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Montenegro and Poland.

It did not seem to matter that viewers were keenly interested in what Mulgrew might have to say of the Champions League duel.

Instead, next up was one of those slickly-contrived previews with “end of the world” narration about two games, the soonest of which was a full ten days away.

Boos all round.