Bearing in mind that the nearest time zone is four hours ahead during summer, I reckon the matches will start at 12pm, 3pm and 6pm with the final at 7:30pm.

I don't know why but when I think of Russia 2018, I think of players playing on ice.

Moscow is 3 hours ahead of London, is it not?

4 during summer.

It's 3 at the moment.

Russia should be stripped of their World Cup cos of their illegal annexation of Crimea.

And cos Russia are shitty at football too.

You're right, I got mixed up.

So I reckon 12pm, 3pm and 7pm then.

Let's not forget the Champion's League final in Moscow kicked off at 7.45pm, and the priority for FIFA will be the Western Europe TV audience not what suits the Russians.

Wouldn't be surprised to see a couple of mid-morning kick-offs in there for some of the more Eastern venues. Not sure how east the tournament's going, but there's a chance that a couple of the host cities could be 7-8 hours ahead, in which case there may be a few 10-11am matches.

Remember in the 2002 World Cup which was in South Korea and Japan, one of the England games kicked off at 7.30am British time, against Nigeria IIRC.

Many people were late in for work that day.

That was a one off for the final, normal Champions League game kick off times when Russian team plays at home is 5pm UK time.

Qatar is only 3 hours ahead so 2022 kick off times won't be too bad either providing Qatar aren't stripped as hosts which is for a different thread.

In the Summer?

It's quite likely that at least one game a night will kick off at 7pm - 8pm UK time. The matches in Brazil were staged to suit the western European audience (that's where all the money and sponsorship is) - all of the knockout games were staged at 1pm and 5pm Brazilian time.

Let's say Germany were playing England in the last 16 in 2018. A match like that would pull in 45-50m viewers in those two countries alone......the TV networks wouldn't want that kicking off at 4.30pm or 5pm on a Monday afternoon.

Lets hope that never becomes a reason to not host a World Cup or England will never get one.

It doesn't seem to have been an impediment recently when hosts have been decided; Qatar, Russia, South Africa, Brazil...

Not so many late nights then?

Could see a mad rush home from work for many people.

I think they would definitely go with 10pm kick offs local time or even later for the last match of the day. There's no way they'd hold a World Cup in Europe where the concluding match of the day was done and dusted by 7pm UK time, that would make no sense at all.....western Europe is where the big audiences are, along with the money and sponsorship, and the World Cup is staged primarily for the benefit of the global TV audience, not for the people living in the host country.

The Champion's League final in Moscow in 2008 started at the usual 7.45pm UK time and the Eurovision Song Contest the following year in the same city began at the usual 8pm (11pm local time).

I wouldn't be too surprised to see 11pm kickoff games - so peak time 9pm games for most of Western Europe and 8pm games for us

I expect the same brilliant refereeing as we had in South Korea to take Russia to the semi-final. 1-2 players from the other side sent off every game, a few disallowed goals and Russia may actually win this!

Even more extreme, the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Baku started at midnight local time and ended around 3:15am!

Local time games kicked off 1pm, 4pm and 6pm/7pm with 1 10pm game. Korea/Japan was 3:30pm-8:30pm. Ideal times and the ones europe does is 2pm, 5pm, 8pm.

Im not quite sure but i think all venues are +3 except 1 is +4 and 1 is +6.
It should be 11am/2pm/5pm, I think the best it could be for europe would be 12pm/3pm/6pm
I dont think they cater to europe enough to have 10pm games

Yes, but the likes of German, British, Italian and Spanish TV are paying an absolute fortune to FIFA to show the games. Let's say Germany and Spain meet in the knockout rounds....it would make no sense to stage that match at 8pm local time just because it suits Russian TV viewers : in fact the Russian audience would only have an academic interest in the match.

Maybe they could arrange for Russia to play all it's matches at 8pm local time, nobody would have a problem with that.

Yes but pretty sure Games have never started at 10pm local time so why start now. Would imagine there are safety issues with late games

I think with the amount of money floating around from TV rights and sponsorship these days, we're into a new era. The World Cup in 2018 is not being staged for the benefit and entertainment of Russian TV viewers. Don't forget that if the last game of the day proceeded at 8pm local time every night, not only would the western European audience be discommoded to a certain extent, but the whole of the Americas would be even more put out.

Spain and Korean was a different story in that there was very little they could do with the kick off times to make them suitable for European TV.

Would it not be appropriate for the TV companies to choose which country hosts the World Cup rather than FIFA??!!