The 2022 World Cup in Qatar should take place in November and December, a Fifa taskforce has recommended.
Key football officials met in Doha to discuss a number of options following fears a summer event would endanger the health of players and fans.
Qatari temperatures in June and July can exceed 40 degrees centigrade.
Taskforce chief Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al-Khalifa also recommended that the 2022 tournament should be shortened by a few days.
But there are no plans to reduce the size of the tournament from 32 teams or 64 matches.
The recommendation is expected to be ratified by the executive committee of world football's governing body next month.
The news will upset some of Europe's top leagues, who preferred an April-May option to minimise disruption to their own domestic programmes.
The other date under consideration was January-February, but that raised the prospect of a clash with the Winter Olympics.
BBC Radio 5 live's sports news reporter Richard Conway said it looked like Europe's leading leagues had "lost this argument" but indicated the row over dates would rumble on.
"It's not not the end of the story by a long way, but organisers in Qatar will be hopeful that this is the start perhaps of building and planning for the 2022 World Cup for real," he added.
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