How to watch the Qatar World Cup 2022: Live stream every match from the UK, US or elsewhere

 

Get the low-down on the crucial dates and kick-off times, plus the group stage draw and fixture schedule for this winter’s FIFA World Cup

The 2022 World Cup is set to be one of the most unique FIFA competitions of all time – and it's only a matter of months away. With Qatar on hosting duties, football’s premier competition has moved away from its usual summer slot to be staged this Winter, in air-conditioned venues across the Arab peninsula, due to Qatar’s blisteringly hot weather.

In what will be the shortest World Cup schedule of all time, a total of 64 matches will be squeezed in between regular Premier League and other European seasons between 20 November and the final on 18 December. That’s four matches per day of football throughout the group stages followed by increasingly more important fixtures in the knockout rounds, so you won’t want to miss a beat of play.

In the UK, you can watch every game live on BBC or ITV, with fixtures split evenly between the two free-to-air broadcasters. For football, or rather soccer fans based in the US, you’ll need the Fox and Fox Sports channels which can be easily found on a streaming service like Hulu + Live TV or SlingTV. Should you be abroad on an early Christmas vacation, you can also access any of the above streaming services using a good VPN, such as ExpressVPN.

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How to watch the World Cup 2022 in the UK | the US | Canada | anywhere else

World Cup fixture schedule | Kick off times | Groups | Stadiums

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There’s nothing quite like the football World Cup: 32 nations and cultures coming together to compete for glory in the most popular sport in the world. Four years ago, the 2018 FIFA competition drew in 3.57 billion viewers – that’s more than half the global population aged four and over. The live final itself gathered 1.12 billion people to watch France beat Croatia and become World champions for the second time. For 2022, FIFA president Gianni Infantino expects even more eyes glued to the action, estimating five billion viewers overall, for what is to be the first ever World Cup held in the Arab world.

Should you wish to join the masses and watch wall-to-wall football over the one month duration of the World Cup, we’ve got the complete guide for you. Read on for all the dates and times of fixtures, including an exhaustive schedule including every game; details about which country is drawn with who, and most importantly of all, how you can watch the games wherever you are.

READ NEXT: How to watch the Premier League

When is the FIFA World Cup?

Qatar’s intense summer temperatures of between 35C (95F) and 45C (113F) have forced the international men’s tournament to be moved from its regular slot in the June and July months. Instead, all fixtures will be played over a 29-day period from late-November to mid-December.

The World Cup 2022 will begin on 20 November with the opening ceremony followed by the opening fixture as hosts Qatar play Ecuador at 7pm local time, or 4pm in the UK. The World Cup final is scheduled for 18 December with all the other key dates listed below.

20 November: World Cup starts
3/6 December: Round of 16
9/10 December: Quarter-finals
13/14 December: Semi-finals
18 December: World Cup final

What happens to the Premier League during the World Cup?

Since the World Cup 2022 is interrupting the usual schedule of the Premier League, Championship and other European football league seasons, this begs the question what will happen to those competitions.

All major leagues will stop for the duration of the World Cup. For the Premier League, the last round of fixtures will be on the weekend of the 12/13 November before resuming again on 26 December for the Boxing Day fixture traditions.

World Cup schedule 2022

In total, there will be 64 matches played over the 28-day World Cup period. That’s 48 matches in the group stage and 16 matches in the knockout rounds. Click here for a full schedule of World Cup 2022 fixtures.

When will the World Cup matches kick off in the UK?

The first two rounds of group fixtures will kick off at 1pm, 4pm, 7pm and 10pm in Qatari local time, which is 10am, 1pm, 4pm and 7pm in the UK.

Kick-off times for the final round of group games, as well as the subsequent knockout matches, will be at 6pm and 10pm local time (3pm and 7pm UK time).

The final is scheduled to kick off at 6pm local time (3pm UK time).

When will matches kick off in the US, Canada and elsewhere?

Below you can find a table of kick off times for a few of the major locations around the world depending on which round of the tournament is currently in progress.

Stage(s)	Local (Qatar)	USA & Canada (ET)	UK (GMT)	Australia (AEDT)	India (IST)
Group stage only	1pm	5am	10am	9pm	3:30pm
Group stage only	4pm	8am	1pm	12am	6:30pm
Knockouts only	6pm	10am	3pm	2am	8:30pm
Group stage only	7pm	11am	4pm	3am	9:30pm
Group & Knockouts	10pm	2pm	7pm	6am	12:30am

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Where is the World Cup 2022 taking place?

The World Cup 2022 will be taking place across the country Qatar, a peninsula country on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula that is around half the size of Wales in the UK.

Where are the stadiums?

There are eight stadiums in five host cities, but due to the small size of Qatar the furthest distance between cities is just 34 miles (55km). The below graphic highlights the location and size of all the stadiums for the World Cup 2022.

Who qualified for the World Cup 2022?

Out of the 210 FIFA member nations that attempted to get to Qatar, 32 teams were left standing. By region, there are six nations from Asia (AFC), five from Africa (CAF), four from North & Central America (Concacaf), four from South America (CONMEBOL), none from Oceania (OFC) and 13 from Europe (UEFA).

These countries were then placed in pots based on their FIFA world ranking while hosts Qatar were automatically placed in Pot 1. On April 1st 2022, the groups for opening matches of the tournament were drawn, where one team from each pot was placed in a group, and it threw up some interesting match ups.

World Cup groups 2022

• Group A: Qatar, Ecuador, Senegal, Netherlands
• Group B: England, Iran, USA, Wales
• Group C: Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Poland
• Group D: France, Australia, Denmark, Tunisia
• Group E: Spain, Costa Rica, Germany, Japan
• Group F: Belgium, Canada, Morocco, Croatia
• Group G: Brazil, Serbia, Switzerland, Cameroon
• Group H: Portugal, Ghana, Uruguay, South Korea

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How to watch the World Cup in the UK: BBC and ITV

British-based football fans have a familiar duo of free-to-air broadcasters providing coverage of the 2022 FIFA World Cup: BBC and ITV. All the World Cup 2022 matches can therefore be watched live without you paying a jot. Those fixtures have been divvied up equally between the two networks and you can check which channel has which games, as well as all the important dates and times, by clicking here.

Should you not have a TV with access to the BBC or ITV, you can also stream fixtures online via BBC iPlayer or ITVX (the replacement of ITV Hub coming this Autumn) as well as catch up on highlights and any other World Cup adjacent coverage. These streaming services are available on any devices, including mobile phones and smart TVs.

Watch BBC iPlayerWatch ITVX

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How to watch the World Cup in the US: Fox Sports

As with the 2018 World Cup, Fox Sports holds the exclusive English-language rights to show every match of the 2022 World Cup. Those games will be split between Fox and FS1 channels – with 35 matches on Fox and 29 on FS1.

The regular Fox channel is free-to-air across most of the US, meaning those games won't require any spending on your part. However for FS1, you’ll need a Fox Sports subscription.

You’ve got a few options to get both channels depending on the service you prefer:

• Hulu With Live TV: Fox on broadcast; FS1 available as part of the sole plan.
• Sling TV: Fox on broadcast; FS1 is available on the Sling Blue plan.
• DirecTV Stream: Fox on broadcast; FS1 available on all plans.

Subscribe to Hulu + Live TVSubscribe to SlingTVSubscribe to DirecTV

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Fox Sports will also stream every match via its apps for mobile, Roku, Android TV, Chromecast, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV meaning you can watch all the games even if you are on the move.

The Spanish-language rights in the US are held by Telemundo and therefore, the channel will air all the games in Spanish across the United States. This channel is free and available on all the streaming services mentioned above.

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How to watch the World Cup in Canada: The Sports Network (TSN)

In Canada, the official broadcaster for the World Cup 2022 is Bell Media and The Sports Network (TSN) channels it operates. It will cover the whole competition, including Canada’s games, live in English commentary across its channels TSN and TSN2 channels, which are also available to stream online via laptops and mobile devices.

You can get a TSN subscription for $20 CAD/mth (+ tax), which would cover the whole World Cup if you time it correctly. Equally, you can get a 12 month pass for $200 CAD which is the equivalent of two months free, should you know you want a sports subscription all year round.

Subscribe to TSN

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How to watch the World Cup 2022 abroad: Use a good VPN

Unfortunately, when you travel abroad, football fans don’t always have the easiest route to watching matches live. For the World Cup 2022, those normally based in Britain will find that access to the BBC or ITV streams are geo-blocked when you try to access them outside the UK. Likewise, fans who usually live in America will find access to their streaming service of choice to be unavailable when in another territory for Thanksgiving or the Christmas holidays.

The solution to these problems is to use a good Virtual Private Network software, commonly known as a VPN. Using one will mask your own location, encrypt your data and instead show your device’s IP address to be in whatever location you set it to – in this instance, you’ll want to connect to the place where you have a stream you want to watch like the UK or America. That way, you can bypass those geo-blockers and watch live streams of all the World Cup match-ups you’d otherwise have missed.

To make sure you can though, you’ll need a pretty good one as many aren’t up to scratch. We’ll give you a run-down of our two favourite services and let you decide what you prefer.

READ NEXT: Best VPNs for speed, privacy and streaming

ExpressVPN: First of all, have a gander at this wonderful VPN: our favourite choice for streaming. You can use it on five devices at once, ideal for larger households, while the app is easy to use. Crucially, our tests showed it to offer the fastest speeds around – but the built-in speedometer should show your speeds to you as well. There’s also a kill-switch and split-tunnelling functionality. With over 3,000 servers in 94 countries, there isn’t much to dislike. Expert Reviews readers can grab three months for free down below too. What a treat.

Buy ExpressVPN now

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NordVPN: With 25Mbits/sec speeds, right from the first whistle NordVPN is a strong alternative. It offers excellent privacy too, since its privacy policy has been independently audited by PwC – no one is tracking your data. We can assure you it works with almost any streaming service too, including BBC iPlayer via a UK-based server, so you won’t miss any game-changing goals during the World Cup this year. Rounding it off is a beautiful map-based interface that makes it all super easy to use.

Buy NordVPN now

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World Cup 2022 fixture schedule

Stage	Fixture	Venue	City	Kick-off (UK)	Channel (UK)
Sun 20 November
Group A	Qatar vs Ecuador	Al Bayt Stadium	Al Khor	4pm	BBC
Mon 21 November
Group B	England vs Iran	Khalifa International Stadium	Al Rayyan	1pm	BBC
Group A	Senegal vs Netherlands	Al Thumama Stadium	Al Khor	4pm	ITV
Group B	USA vs Wales	Ahmed bin Ali Stadium	Al Rayyan	7pm	ITV
Tues 22 November
Group C	Argentina vs Saudi Arabia	Lusail Iconic Stadium	Lusail	10am	ITV
Group D	Denmark vs Tunisia	Education City Stadium	Al Rayyan	1pm	ITV
Group C	Mexico vs Poland	Stadium 974	Doha	4pm	BBC
Group D	France vs Australia	Al Janoub Stadium	Al Wakrah	7pm	BBC
Weds 23 November
Group F	Morocco vs Croatia	Al Bayt Stadium	Al Khor	10am	ITV
Group E	Germany vs Japan	Khalifa International Stadium	Al Rayyan	1pm	ITV
Group E	Spain vs Costa Rica	Al Thumama Stadium	Al Khor	4pm	ITV
Group F	Belgium vs Canada	Ahmed bin Ali Stadium	Al Rayyan	7pm	BBC
Thurs 24 November
Group G	Switzerland vs Cameroon	Al Janoub Stadium	Al Wakrah	10am	ITV
Group H	Uruguay vs South Korea	Education City Stadium	Al Rayyan	1pm	BBC
Group H	Portugal vs Ghana	Stadium 974	Doha	4pm	ITV
Group G	Brazil vs Serbia	Lusail Iconic Stadium	Lusail	7pm	BBC
Fri 25 November
Group B	Wales vs Iran	Ahmed bin Ali Stadium	Al Rayyan	10am	BBC
Group A	Qatar vs Senegal	Al Thumama Stadium	Al Khor	1pm	BBC
Group A	Netherlands vs Ecuador	Khalifa International Stadium	Al Rayyan	4pm	ITV
Group B	England vs USA	Al Bayt Stadium	Al Khor	7pm	ITV
Sat 26 November
Group D	Tunisia vs Australia	Al Janoub Stadium	Al Wakrah	10am	BBC
Group C	Poland vs Saudi Arabia	Education City Stadium	Al Rayyan	1pm	ITV
Group D	France vs Denmark	Stadium 974	Doha	4pm	ITV
Group C	Argentina vs Mexico	Lusail Iconic Stadium	Lusail	7pm	ITV
Sun 27 November
Group E	Japan vs Costa Rica	Ahmed bin Ali Stadium	Al Rayyan	10am	ITV
Group F	Belgium vs Morocco	Al Thumama Stadium	Al Khor	1pm	BBC
Group F	Croatia vs Canada	Khalifa International Stadium	Al Rayyan	4pm	BBC
Group E	Spain vs Germany	Al Bayt Stadium	Al Khor	7pm	BBC
Mon 28 November
Group G	Cameroon vs Serbia	Al Janoub Stadium	Al Wakrah	10am	ITV
Group H	South Korea vs Ghana	Education City Stadium	Al Rayyan	1pm	BBC
Group G	Brazil vs Switzerland	Stadium 974	Doha	4pm	ITV
Group H	Portugal vs Uruguay	Lusail Iconic Stadium	Lusail	7pm	ITV
Tues 29 November
Group A	Netherlands vs Qatar	Al Bayt Stadium	Al Khor	3pm	ITV
Group A	Ecuador vs Senegal	Khalifa International Stadium	Al Rayyan	3pm	ITV
Group B	Wales vs England	Ahmed bin Ali Stadium	Al Rayyan	7pm	BBC
Group B	Iran vs USA	Al Thumama Stadium	Al Khor	7pm	BBC
Weds 30 November
Group D	Australia vs Denmark	Al Janoub Stadium	Al Wakrah	3pm	BBC
Group D	Tunisia vs France	Education City Stadium	Al Rayyan	3pm	BBC
Group C	Poland vs Argentina	Stadium 974	Doha	7pm	BBC
Group C	Saudi Arabia vs Mexico	Lusail Iconic Stadium	Lusail	7pm	BBC
Thurs 1 December
Group F	Croatia vs Belgium	Ahmed bin Ali Stadium	Al Rayyan	3pm	BBC
Group F	Canada vs Morocco	Al Thumama Stadium	Al Khor	3pm	BBC
Group E	Costa Rica vs Germany	Al Bayt Stadium	Al Khor	7pm	ITV
Group E	Japan vs Spain	Khalifa International Stadium	Al Rayyan	7pm	ITV
Fri 2 December
Group H	South Korea vs Portugal	Education City Stadium	Al Rayyan	3pm	BBC
Group H	Ghana vs Uruguay	Al Janoub Stadium	Al Wakrah	3pm	BBC
Group G	Serbia vs Switzerland	Stadium 974	Doha	7pm	ITV
Group G	Cameroon vs Brazil	Lusail Iconic Stadium	Lusail	7pm	ITV
Round of 16
Sat 3 December
49	Winners of Group A vs Runners-up of Group B	Khalifa International Stadium	Al Rayyan	3pm
50	Winners of Group C vs Runners-up of Group D	Ahmed bin Ali Stadium	Al Rayyan	7pm
Sun 4 December
52	Winners of Group D vs Runners-up of Group C	Al Thumama Stadium	Doha	3pm
51	Winners of Group B vs Runners-up of Group A	Al Bayt Stadium	Al Khor	7pm
Mon 5 December
53	Winners of Group E vs Runners-up of Group F	Al Janoub Stadium	Al Wakrah	3pm
54	Winners of Group G vs Runners-up of Group H	Stadium 974	Doha	7pm
Tues 6 December
55	Winners of Group F vs Runners-up of Group E	Education City Stadium	Al Rayyan	3pm
56	Winners of Group H vs Runners-up of Group G	Lusail Iconic Stadium	Lusail	7pm
Quarter-finals
Fri 9 December
58	Winners of 53 vs Winners of 54	Education City Stadium	Al Rayyan	3pm
57	Winners of 49 vs Winners of 50	Lusail Iconic Stadium	Lusail	3pm
Sat 10 December
60	Winners of 55 vs Winners of 56	Al Thumama Stadium	Doha	3pm
59	Winners of 51 vs Winners of 52	Al Bayt Stadium	Al Khor	7pm
Semi-finals
Tues 13 December
61	Winners of 57 vs Winners of 58	Lusail Iconic Stadium	Lusail	7pm
Weds 14 December
62	Winners of 59 vs Winners of 60	Al Bayt Stadium	Al Khor	7pm
Sat 17 December
63	Third place play-off	Khalifa International Stadium	Al Rayyan	3pm
Final
Sun 18 December
64	World Cup final	Lusail Iconic Stadium	Lusail	3pm