It will be the first time that the men's FIFA World Cup finals have ever been quite this late in the calendar year, but not the first time a major global event has begun in November.

In 1949, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) met in Rome to choose the host city for the 1956 Games. In the final round of voting, Melbourne beat Buenos Aires by a single vote.

IOC vice-president Avery Brundage, who had watched bids by Chicago and Detroit fall by the wayside, expressed astonishment that two southern-hemisphere cities had polled so many votes.

Even though the international sporting calendar was by no means as full as it has become in recent years, the arguments soon began over the best dates to hold the Games.

IOC President Sigfrid Edström visited the United States and announced that September and October were the preferred dates for the Melbourne Olympics.

"October is going to be pretty tough for all the college people who want to go," United States Olympic Committee secretary Asa Bushnell responded.

The American academic year ran from September to May and many team sports such as basketball had relied on collegiate players to comply with the strict amateur regulations in force at the time.

"We will have to revise our entire programme of training," American Amateur Athletic Union secretary treasurer Dan Ferris predicted. "Our athletes stop competing in July and don't start getting in condition again until the cross country season in the fall."

In 1950, Sir Harold Luxton presented a progress report on Melbourne's preparations to the IOC Session in Copenhagen.

"Avery Brundage has written to me on several occasions to say that January, February would be the optimum time for the Games," Luxton explained.

The 1938 British Empire Games in Sydney and the 1950 edition in Auckland had been held in February and both had been considered very successful.

Many in the southern hemisphere also held the belief that their athletes had previously been required for the most part to compete "out of season" at Games held predominantly in Europe with all the disadvantages that this had entailed.

There was however a major obstacle to this plan.

In those days the Winter Olympics were held in the same year as the Summer Games. In 1956, the Winter Olympics in the Italian resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo had been fixed to open in late January.

There was a "long discussion" and then came a revised proposal from the Australians.

"The Melbourne Committee now believes that December 1956 would be preferable for countries of both hemispheres," Luxton told the IOC.

"It is believed that it would be very beneficial for the students, to allow them to make the necessary arrangements for their absence, without having to handicap their studies too much," he continued.

"It is thought that the month of December would be preferable to obtain a leave of absence," Luxton concluded. 

He also informed the Session that the University of Melbourne would be closed and could therefore be used for training venues.

Yet when a vote was taken, only five members voted for December whereas 14 were in favour of Games beginning at the end of October and into November.

This was still not the end of the matter, for when the IOC met the following year in Vienna, the question was debated once again. It was decided that the Games should begin in late November. 

Erik von Frenckell of Finland and Bo Ekelund of Sweden both objected. Both were nations where winter sports were very important.

"They regretted the period chosen because it would create difficulties for athletes from the North," it was reported.

The IOC and the Organising Committee stuck to their guns and announced: "It is proposed to hold the Opening Ceremony during the afternoon of Thursday, 22nd November, 1956."

The years before the Games were fraught with obstacles, not least because Australian quarantine regulations rendered it impossible for the equestrian events to be held there.

Then in 1956, the Suez Crisis and the Soviets' reaction to the Hungarian uprising cast a shadow over the Games and prompted some nations to stay away altogether.

The football tournament was beset by withdrawals as five nations qualified for the Games but decided not to travel.

Some made the decision because of the cost, others for political reasons, others still, because of a clash with domestic football programmes.

The British team, eliminated in the qualifying round by Bulgaria, were invited to help make up the numbers but even so only 11 teams participated instead of 16 planned.

The Melbourne Olympics of 1956 were opened on the prescribed day in November by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and were hailed as a great success.

It would not be the last time that there would be discussions about scheduling.

After original proposals to stage the Tokyo 1964 Olympics in the early summer, they eventually opened in October as did the 1968 Games in Mexico City.

In 1988, the Seoul Olympics began in late September and Sydney 2000 ran through the last weeks of September.

By then, the schedules of the American networks had become a major consideration for the IOC and Games organisers alike and it was considered important to minimise the clash with coverage of the National Football League.

Scheduling the World Cup has not always been straightforward, even when it was held in its traditional place in the calendar.

Organisers of the Mexico 1970 tournament, which ran through the first three weeks of June, were criticised for scheduling key matches for noon local time, the hottest part of the day.

This was to accommodate television viewers in Europe who were thus able to watch the action live in early evening.

For the 1974 tournament held in West Germany, data on rainfall and other weather patterns was fed into a computer which was then supposed to choose the optimum dates. Those selected electronically happened to coincide with rainstorms.

The rain fell throughout as West Germany beat Sweden 4-2 in a match hailed as a classic but it had a more serious effect on West Germany's match against Poland which ultimately decided who would advance to the final.

Kickoff was delayed because the pitch was waterlogged. West Germany won 1-0 but "the match was spoiled by the rain-soaked ground" admitted the official FIFA Report. 

When in 2010, FIFA’s Executive Committee voted to award the 2022 tournament to Qatar, there were already rumours that it would have to move from its traditional dates. 

It was however originally announced that the matches would be played in June and July, a time when the temperatures typically reach 40 degrees Celsius and have been known to exceed 50 degrees.

Bid officials insisted that air conditioning in the stadia would offset the intense heat.

Eventually FIFA set up a taskforce headed by Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa. Few were truly surprised when it recommended that that the tournament be moved to the winter months of the year.

In 2015, before a decision on the host city of the 2022 Winter Olympics had been taken, IOC President Thomas Bach had already expressed his concerns about a potential clash between the World Cup and the Games.

"Neither the World Cup nor the Olympic Winter Games would get the full attention they deserve," Bach said.

"It would cause major problems with the broadcasters. It would cause major problems with the sponsors."

When Qatar hosted the 1995 FIFA Youth Championship after Nigeria had withdrawn because of a health scare, the matches took place in April.

The 2006 Asian Games in Doha took place in December.

Competition took place in moderate temperatures and in fact there was heavy rain on the night of the Opening Ceremony.

By way of comparison, when Qatar stepped in to host the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) World Beach Games in 2019, they were staged in October, and even in the very early morning, the humidity and heat was intense.

This time, the major leagues of Europe are set to shut down only a few days before the World Cup tournament begins and already some key players look set to miss the tournament after sustaining injuries in the hurly burly of club football.

N'Golo Kanté has been ruled out for France, Portugal will have to do without Diogo Jota and even the host nation have injury worries. Midfielder Abdullah Al-Ahrak has been ruled out with a cruciate ligament injury and the list is set to grow before the tournament.

Yet as my colleague David Owen writes in the new insidethegames.biz Magazine, "a decision that may have seemed batty to many a dozen years ago now seems to make a lot more sense".

Not least the unwitting legacy that "it may make the European title races a tad less predictable".

In this tournament like no other, it would also be good to see the World Cup itself lifted by a team outside the usual suspects