As the World Cup draws to a close, FIFA has been criticised for scheduling several games for midday kick-offs in the tropical cities of Natal and Fortaleza, where temperatures have been reaching the low 30s, with high humidity thrown in for good measure. Some of the games went to extra time. Players were permitted water breaks but team doctors have been complaining.

There is a safety issue for spectators too – in these climes, only mad dogs and Englishmen, the song goes, step out in the midday sun. Before the World Cup started, the players’ union in Brazil objected to the scheduling of midday games in the tropics but they were ignored.

We have been here before. Actually, I was here before in person, at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida, in June 1994 when Ireland lost a World Cup group game 2-1 to Mexico. The game kicked off around midday in an uncovered concrete bowl; a 1930s American football stadium. The heat was intense and numerous spectators needed assistance from the Red Cross. As for the players, it was simply beyond belief that anyone could keep going for 90 minutes. Naturally, there were specially constructed air-conditioned executive boxes for FIFA officials and local worthies.

When the game ended the Irish crowd retired to the hotels along International Drive to rehydrate, where we encountered some Mexican supporters, one of whom was a medical doctor and also a referee in the Mexican League. The Irish fans had been moaning that the boiling conditions favoured the Mexicans. The good doctor disabused us rather rapidly, pointing out that Mexicans are not stupid and that games are never scheduled in Mexico in a manner dangerous to players and spectators. Any games on days likely to be very warm are held in the evening, as late as 10pm if necessary. He insisted that the Mexican team doctors, to whom he had spoken, were concerned about the lunchtime kick-off and had tried to get it changed. He was apoplectic, despite his team’s success, about the irresponsibility of FIFA. There were numerous protests from Jack Charlton, among others, about the appalling conditions, especially for the players, in Orlando.

It has been said of the Bourbon kings that they never forget but they never learn, and FIFA seems to be cut from the same cloth. Why does the organisation persist in this dangerous timing of matches?

The reason has to do with time zones and television schedules. The most lucrative TV audiences for the World Cup are in Europe. Attractive audience timings in Western Europe, say 5pm and 9pm, require the games to be scheduled at 1pm and 5pm in Brazil. The US schedules in 1994 reflected the same concern. In order for games to be available in Europe at teatime, the players (and spectators) must tog out in Brazil at the hottest time of the day. This is not too much of a factor in Rio de Janeiro and points further south, (it is winter in the southern hemisphere), but the northern Brazilian cities are almost on the equator.

Florida was chosen in 1994 even though it is in the tropics. One must presume that the Brazilian authorities felt that some games had to be allocated to the north, just as the USA allocated some games to Florida. But surely they could have been scheduled for late evening local time.

FIFA is committed to an even riskier adventure in 2022, where the World Cup has been allocated to the tiny, but immensely wealthy, desert sheikdom of Qatar. Temperatures, even in the evening, have been even higher these last few weeks than in Brazil’s northern cities. In Qatar, a country about the size of Co Cork, it really does not matter what time of day is chosen, it is simply an insane place to hold a summer tournament. Apparently FIFA is considering the option of playing the 2022 Qatar tournament in winter, but faces opposition from the European countries whose league schedules would be totally disrupted.

The simple solution, not available in the case of Brazil which was entitled to a World Cup at some stage, is not to schedule the World Cup for Qatar at all. Who ever heard of Qatar as a plausible venue for a World Cup until, to the surprise of all, it was selected by FIFA? It has since emerged through allegations in The Sunday Times that there was widespread bribery and corruption surrounding Qatar’s selection.

International organisations such as FIFA appear to enjoy a direct relationship with the Almighty and are subject to no other form of accountability. The carry-on with match scheduling in northern Brazil would provoke sanction from the health and safety people if attempted by any accountable body.