An investigation came to a dead end, but the head of FIFA’s Audit And Compliance Committee, Domenico Scala, made it known that any evidence of bribery found could result in the reversal of the decision to award Qatar the World Cup.

Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA until 2015, said of the controversy:

You cannot buy a World Cup, it will go at the end where the higher political influences are. For World Cup 2022, Platini at least had the courtesy to phone me and say: ‘Now we have had a meeting with the head of state and if the head of state is asking me to support France for different reasons then I will’. He was very correct, he phoned me and said my vote will not be for the Americans.

He said if a head of state is asking you, you can still say yes or no, but in the interests of France … I knew then there would be a problem, we tried but it was too late. It was one week or 10 days before the vote. I tried to see what votes were left for the US but four votes were lost.

The bidding procedure began in January 2009. In the end, there were five bids for the 2022 World Cup: Australia, Japan, Qatar, South Korea and the United States. The following year, Russia and Qatar were announced as 2018’s and 2022’s hosts respectively.

Share This Post