National teams may only play a maximum of two international matches in any one international match period

To the members of FIFA
Circular 1355
Zurich, 6 May 2013 
SG/mfa

Men's international match calendar for the September 2014 to July 2018 period

Dear Sir or Madam,

At its meeting on 20 March 2013, the FIFA Executive Committee ratified the international match
calendar for the September 2014 to July 2018 period (these dates can already be found on
FIFA.com - cf. enclosure).

As you will already be aware, this international match calendar has been drawn up after a vast
consultation process involving representatives of the confederations, leagues and clubs.
Consequently, this circular outlines the main aspects of the calendar as weil as the information you
will need to understand the calendar before it comes into force in September 2014.

Period: as mentioned above, this international match calendar will be in force between September
2014 and July 2018 (i.e. the final day of the 2018 FIFA World CUpTM). The period has been divided
into two cycles, 2014-2016 and 2016-2018. Each cycle has nine double-dates, each corresponding
to aperiod stretching from a Monday to the Tuesday of the following week. All of the
confederations - with the exception of UEFA - mayaiso use an extra double-date that is scheduled
for June 2016.

Matches: national teams may only play a maximum of two international matches in any one 
international match period. There shall also be at least three days between two matches of any 
national team. In other words, if a national team plays its first match on a Thursday, it cannot play
its second match until the following Sunday. It should be noted that if anational team's two
matches are not played on the territory of the same confederation, the maximum flight time for the
national team between the venues of the two matches shall be five hours over a maximum of two
time zones.


http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/administration/02/07/67/73/circularno.1355-mensinternationalmatchcalendarfortheseptember2014tojuly2018period.pdf