AMSTERDAM: Holland coach Louis van Gaal has described the staging of this year’s World Cup finals in Qatar as “ridiculous.”

The Netherlands and Belgium had submitted a joint bid in vain for the 2018 finals in the scandal-battered process which saw Russia awarded that tournament and 2022 going to the Gulf state.

The draw for this year’s finals will be staged in Doha on April 1 and Netherlands host Denmark in a warm-up friendly on Saturday.

Van Gaal , a long-time critic of the award, said: “It is ridiculous that we’re going to play in a country to — what does FIFA say? —- to develop football there – and you do that by organizing a tournament in that country.

“It’s about money, commercial interests. That’s what matters to FIFA . . . I have always opposed this sort of organization. It’s not right.”

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