Report says Qatar WCup bid tainted
Print Edition
A FORMER top Qatari football official paid more than US$5 million to get support for the tiny emirate’s controversial campaign to host the 2022 World Cup, a British newspaper alleged yesterday.
The Sunday Times said it had obtained millions of emails, documents and bank transfers relating to alleged payments made by Mohamed bin Hammam, who was then on the executive committee of FIFA, the sport’s global governing body.
It alleged that Bin Hammam, who is also a former Asian Football Confederation president, used slush funds to pay cash to top football officials to win a “groundswell” of support for Qatar’s World Cup bid.
Bin Hammam, who launched an abortive challenge against incumbent FIFA President Sepp Blatter, resigned from his FIFA and AFC posts in 2012, shortly before he was banned for life from football administration by FIFA’s ethics committee.
FIFA is investigating the 2010 vote that awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar and the 2018 tournament to Russia, following previous corruption accusations.
A report by FIFA chief investigator Michael Garcia, a top US lawyer, is to be finalized this year. He is due to meet senior officials from the Qatar 2022 organizing committee in Oman today. But that meeting may now have to be postponed in light of yesterday’s revelations.
FIFA and Qatar are already under pressure because the 2022 event will be held in the searing heat of the Qatar summer. FIFA’s president wants the tournament held in the northern hemisphere winter, for the first time, due to the problem.
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