The 2022 World Cup final in Qatar will take place on 18 December, Fifa has confirmed, allowing the English domestic programme to potentially resume on Boxing Day. After four years of intense controversy and debate in the wake of the 2010 vote to award the tournament to Qatar, a Fifa taskforce decided last month the tournament should start in November to avoid searing summer temperatures which regularly top 50C (122F). Uefa had proposed the World Cup final could take place on 23 December but the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, swiftly insisted the previously mooted date of 18 December, which also happens to be Qatar’s national day, was likely. The decision was confirmed during a Fifa executive committee meeting in Zurich on Thursday at which it is understood the Uefa president, Michel Platini, also agreed to the earlier date. It was also agreed, in principle, that the tournament should be played over a reduced timescale of 28 days. The Fifa secretary general, Jérôme Valcke, has already admitted that a TV deal with Fox and Telemundo for the 2026 World Cup was effectively concluded to quell dissent over the winter switch in 2022. The Premier League and other European leagues have been…