FIFA admits the heat has had an impact on the Club World Cup in the United States

NEW YORK — A high-ranking FIFA official admitted that the summer heat during the Club World Cup has taken a toll on the tournament and warned about the possible impact in next year’s World Cup for men’s national teams.

Arsène Wenger, renowned for his many great years managing English club Arsenal, is now FIFA’s chief of global soccer development. He leads the governing body’s Club World Cup technical committee, which is made up of former players and coaches who analyze trends in how the game is played.

The committee held a news conference Thursday in Manhattan, three days before Sunday’s title game between England’s Chelsea and France’s Paris Saint-Germain at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. They weren’t surprised to be asked about the weather and had answers ready.

“On the heat, it was, in some games, a problem,” Wenger said. “But we tried to combat it with water breaks [FIFA allows one per half] and as well by watering the pitches during breaks. I feel that we learned a lot during this time in the tournament, because, certainly, we’ll be moving to stadiums next year where we will play with roofs, with timing that is a little more sensitive to the heat.”

Wenger’s reference to kickoff times also was significant. The technical committee can’t force the hand of FIFA’s tournament organizers, who decide how to lay out next year’s schedule with games in 16 cities across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. But the fact that he brought it up at all sent a message.

A report last month by global soccer players’ union FIFPRO called six of those sites “extremely high risk”: Atlanta; Dallas; Houston; Kansas City; Miami; and Monterrey, Mexico. The first three have indoor stadiums, which solves the problem for games, but not for the rest of the time.

The next tier is “very high risk,” and that group includes Philadelphia; Boston (which is using the NFL stadium in Foxborough, Mass.); and Guadalajara, Mexico.

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Wenger’s initial remarks were as close as he came to ruffling FIFA’s feathers.

“But it looks as well that at the same time in Europe, we have the same weather conditions, and it could be a future problem for everybody,” he said. His fellow Europeans might not want to admit that’s true, but it is: temperatures have been in the 90s for some games in the women’s European Championship in Switzerland, which kicked off July 2.

Some critics also will note that while Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has been one of the weather’s most vocal critics — especially in Philadelphia, where he said it was “impossible to train” during last month’s heat wave — his team is in the final nonetheless.

Wenger said he asked some of FIFA’s data analysts “to analyze well the impact of the heat.” What they told him will please the bosses at the governing body and European TV networks that draw the most valuable audiences and thus influence kickoff times.

“It was minimal,” he said. “We found heat of over 35 [Celsius, 95 Fahrenheit] had an impact on high-speed running -- not on sprints, but on total distances. So the players were quite well equipped to deal with it, and maybe the five substitutions [allowed per game] and the fact that we made [hydration] breaks during the game helped a little bit.”

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Further comments came from other members of the panel, two of whom are well-known to American soccer fans: former U.S. men’s national team manager Jürgen Klinsmann, and current Portugal men’s team manager Roberto Martínez — a veteran of many clubs, countries, and TV work with ESPN and CBS Sports.

“The heat is difficult — I mean, there’s no doubt about it,” Klinsmann said.” In 90-plus degrees Fahrenheit, you’re going to suffer. “But a tournament is always about how to manage obstacles.”

U.S. fans who lived through Klinsmann’s roller-coaster tenure won’t be surprised that he had plenty to say. He remains as talkative now as he has ever been.

”If you want to go and win a World Cup in Qatar, you’ve got to deal with Qatar, you know?” he said, referring to the hosts of the last men’s World Cup in 2022. “And not say before, ‘Oh, I don’t want to go to the Middle East.’ No, this is your job — your job is going wherever it’s chosen to play the next tournament, and deal[ing] with those circumstances. … Football is about adaptation. I adapt to the circumstances I will face.”

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The former German national team star, a World Cup winner in 1990, recalled playing South Korea at the 1994 World Cup. Temperatures on the field hit 120 degrees Fahrenheit at the Cotton Bowl that day, and Germany nearly blew a 3-0 lead in the second half of a 3-2 win.

“I played in Dallas in 1994 in 120 degrees at noon for the television rights in Europe,” he said. “Well, we were dying … Two more minutes on the field, and they would have scored the third goal. Thank God, [the referee] blew the final whistle.”

Klinsmann even snuck in a shot at his home country, which certainly will generate headlines there. Germany’s 2022 team made a silent protest in Qatar over FIFA’s ban on wearing a rainbow-colored armband to support the LGBTQ+ population, since same-sex relations are barred in Qatar. The team was eliminated in the group stage, and critics immediately pounced.

“There will be always some issues that we can talk [about] up and down that are not perfect for the teams, for anybody involved,” Klinsmann said. “So it’s about how do I handle these issues? Do I complain about all [them] like Germany did before they went to Qatar? They created their own bad karma and went home right away in the group stage.”

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Martínez noted the number of games that were halted in progress because of thunderstorms, six through the round of 16. And he acknowledged that those breaks didn’t just lead to players sitting around for a while, but altered how things went when action resumed.

“A weather break is something different that you need to prepare [for],” he said. “There’s a lot about being able to cope with those breaks that we’re not used to in in Europe. ... I was surprised how much the performance changes when there is a a weather break, and that’s something that you have to be prepared for.”

His advice to fellow manager was to “work on the preparation of the player ... and just kill the doubt when players go into a dressing room waiting for 50 minutes.”