awarding competition to Qatar was ‘a mistake’, says former FIFA President Sepp Blatter

“A mistake”. This is the term used by Sepp Blatter in an interview givenTuesday 8 November, to the German agency SID, a subsidiary of AFP, to qualify the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. “Awarding the World Cup to Qatar was simply a mistake. For me, the country was too small, it is as big as a canton here in Switzerland”has indicated the one who led the body of world football between 1998 and 2015.

The Swiss also mentioned “a consensus within the executive committee of Fifa” about a preference for the United States as host country, instead of Qatar, to succeed Russia in 2018. A broken consensus a week before the vote according to him, during a lunch at the Élysée with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Qatar Crown Prince Tamim bin Hamad al Thani and former UEFA President Michel Platini. “The quintessence was that I could no longer count on the four votes of Europe for the United States”he adds, while Nicolas Sarkozy would have “recommended” Michel Platini to vote for Qatar.

Sepp Blatter also said he was in favor of the creation of“a fund of the order of magnitude of the bonuses paid to the 32 participants [environ 420 millions d’euros]or even double”to compensate migrant workers who have suffered human rights violations in the emirate. As a reminder, Sepp Blatter was acquitted at first instance by the Swiss courts in mid-June, along with Michel Platini, for suspicion of fraud in the performance of his duties at FIFA in 2015.