Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter is surrounded by the media as he leaves the Swiss Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, last June
Picking Qatar to host the World Cup was a mistake 12 years ago, FIFA’s president at the time Sepp Blatter said yesterday, again citing a meeting between Nicolas Sarkozy and Michel Platini for swaying key votes.
The 86-year-old Blatter spoke with the Swiss newspaper group Tamedia in his first major interview since being acquitted with Platini in July of financial misconduct at FIFA after a trial at federal criminal court.
“It’s a country that’s too small,” Blatter said of Qatar, the smallest host by size since the 1954 tournament in Switzerland. “Football and the World Cup are too big for that.”
The 32 teams will play 64 games in eight stadiums in and around the city of Doha which has been transformed since 2010 by massive construction projects to prepare for the World Cup.
“It was a bad choice. And I was responsible for that as president at the time,” said Blatter, who has long said he voted for the United States. Its bid was beaten by Qatar in the final round of a five-candidate contest to be 2022 host.
It became part of FIFA lore that an expected U.S. victory swung toward Qatar at a meeting Sarkozy hosted in Paris in the week before the Dec. 2, 2010 vote by FIFA’s executive committee.
French soccer great Platini, then president of European soccer body UEFA and a vice president of FIFA, was invited by then-state president Sarkozy to his official residence. The crown prince of Qatar, now the Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, was also there.
Blatter yesterday repeated his claim that Sarkozy put pressure on Platini, and again gave his version of a telephone call Platini made to him after the Paris meeting that the World Cup voting plan had changed.
“Thanks to the four votes of Platini and his (UEFA) team, the World Cup went to Qatar rather than the United States. It’s the truth,” Blatter said of the 14-8 voting result.
Blatter did not specifically refer to criticism of Qatar on labor and human rights issues since 2010.
However, he did question why his successor as FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, has moved to live in Qatar for at least the past year.
Blatter noted growing calls, by rights groups and several FIFA member federations including the U.S. and England, to create a compensation fund for families of workers who died or were injured. Qatar’s government has resisted the calls and described them as a “publicity stunt.”
“What can FIFA say if its president is in the same boat as Qatar?” Blatter said of Infantino choosing to live in Doha.
The World Cup starts on Nov. 20 with about 1.2 million international visitors expected to arrive in Qatar. GRAHAM DUNBAR, GENEVA, MDT/AP
World Cup ambassador from Qatar denounces homosexuality
An ambassador for the World Cup in Qatar has described homosexuality as a “damage in the mind” in an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF only two weeks before the opening of the soccer tournament in the Gulf state, highlighting concerns about the conservative country’s treatment of gays and lesbians.
Former Qatari national team player Khalid Salman told a German reporter in an interview that being gay is “haram,” or forbidden in Arabic, and that he has a problem with children seeing gay people.
The full interview, which is part of a documentary, will be shown today on ZDF.
The interview was cut short by a media officer of the World Cup organizing committee after Salman expressed his views on homosexuals, ZDF reported.
