Europe's ruling body UEFA has asked the Spanish football league LFP to stop its legal action against FIFA over the winter staging of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
"We need to take a little bit of heat out of this whole discussion," UEFA secretary general Gianni Infantino told a news conference Tuesday. "It is not the end of the world if we change the (match) calendar once."
The LFP has filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over the decision to move the 2022 World Cup from the traditional summer slot to November-December to avoid the high summer temperatures in the Gulf state.
LFP president Javier Tebas has cited independent reports which concluded the league would lose 72 million dollars as a result of FIFA's decision to move the tournament to the winter.
In order to stage the World Cup in winter the international match calendar needs to be changed.
Other leagues such as Germany's Bundesliga, England's Premier League and Italy's Serie A have not joined the Spaniards as they believe a claim for damages against football's world governing body has little chance of success.
While FIFA rejected a plan from the European Club Association and the
European Professional Football Leagues to stage the Qatar tournament in May, it did announce a three-fold increase in payments to clubs for releasing their players to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
