Former FIFA President, Sepp Blatter claims his fellow Executive Committee (Exco) Members of the world football governing body overlooked advice that Qatar was not capable of hosting the 2022 World Cup but went ahead and voted to award the competition to the Gulf State.
The Sunday Times which published the investigative story on the black ops run by Doha to secure the World Cup bid reported that, Blatter alleged Qatar’s upset win was a result of a “combination of a rule-breaking collusion deal and political pressure†exerted on Michel Platini, the French Exco member.
The above claims, the UK newspaper reported, are made in Blatter’s recently published book dubbed: "Ma Vérité (My Truth)". The contents are defence of Blatter’s 17-year reign at the helm of Fifa, “which ended with a six-year ban from footballâ€.
He goes on to say that because they had already made up their minds, “nobody†among the Exco members, read the detailed inspection report on the candidate countries, because they had already made up their minds.
The executive committee was superseded by the Fifa Council in 2016.
“If we had read them carefully, we would have seen that the World Cup could not be played in Qatarâ€, he wrote.
Blatter said Platini had called him to say he had been pressed to change his vote during a lunch in 2010 with then French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, now the Emir of Qatar. This claim “has always been denied by Platiniâ€, says The Sunday Times.
Blatter said “I do not know and I do not want to know if there is a connection between the Qatar World Cup award and what happened nextâ€.
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But then the ex-FIFA President noted that Doha “spent billions of Euros in France on an aircraft contract and on buying Paris Saint-Germain Football Club".
Source: alarabiya.net
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