Qatar was all but assured of keeping the 2022 World Cup yesterday after a Fifa investigation criticised its bid but failed to uncover enough evidence to see it stripped of the tournament.
The Telegraph has learnt that the long-awaited report into corruption allegations around the award of the next two World Cup finals tournaments, published on Thursday morning, will also admonish England’s doomed attempt to secure the 2018 event as much as any of the other bidders.
The prospect of Qatar emerging as the villain of the most controversial bidding process in sporting history is expected to be all but dismissed by the report, which nevertheless questions the Gulf state’s conduct during its expensively assembled bid.
Indeed, most of the nine 2018 and 2022 bid teams from four years ago come in for some level of criticism but, although the report itself will not determine whether the two votes should be rerun, there is no recommendation for the tournament to be snatched away from Russia or Qatar.
That decision ultimately rests with Fifa’s ruling executive committee, which is ironic considering its 2010 incarnation is understood to have been singled out by investigators for its conduct during the bidding process – including some of its surviving members.
Thursday’s report has been compiled by Fifa’s head judge, Hans-Joachim Eckert, from a separate dossier submitted by its chief investigator, Michael J Garcia. Eckert’s summary is understood to run to more than 40 pages, 10 times shorter than the 430-page document provided by Garcia, but longer than many had feared after the German had threatened to suppress virtually all of it.
It was unclear on Wednesday night whether the summary would identify any individuals facing disciplinary action, which is almost certain to follow in some cases. Many of the officials alleged to have been engaged in corrupt activity around the two ballots have already been ousted from world football, including Qatar’s disgraced Fifa executive committee member, Mohammed bin Hammam, and the even more unethical former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner.
Those involved in England’s bid team, who included the then Football Association chairman Lord Triesman and his predecessor Geoff Thompson, will also be sweating on the contents of the report.
Garcia interviewed several members of the team during his year-long investigation, during which he sought answers on the FA’s £35,000 sponsorship of a Caribbean Football Union summit organised by Warner.
Russia, which beat England to the 2018 tournament, is also admonished for its failure to co-operate with the investigation after claiming its computer systems were wiped in the wake of its victory.
The report is also expected to criticise the simultaneous running of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup votes and how that was handled by Fifa.
The process encouraged collusion between executive committee members whose countries were bidding and investigators recommended it not be repeated. They also called on Fifa to block any national associations which bid for future tournaments from voting on those events, in line with the system employed by Uefa.
Next month will mark four years since football was left stunned by the decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, a desert state where summer temperatures can rise to 50C (122F).
With two executive committee members banned from the ballot for trying to sell their votes, suspicions of foul play immediately surfaced, particularly after England secured only two votes after being promised many more in the race for the 2018 tournament.
A Government inquiry followed in which Triesman made serious allegations against more than one executive committee member, including accusing one, Nicolás Leoz, of asking for a knighthood in return for his support.
The decimation of the Fifa executive committee in the intervening years, many leaving amid allegations of corruption, reinforced the impression of a culture of venality at the world governing body.
Under mounting pressure to put a stop to this, Fifa implemented governance reforms which saw Garcia and Eckert appointed as the heads of a two-chamber independent ethics committee. It fell to the former US attorney Garcia to examine the bidding process for the next two World Cups, a probe that took more than a year, cost millions, and had no power to subpoena witnesses.
Garcia submitted his findings, which included 200,000 pages of relevant material, in September and there were immediate calls for them to be published in full. Eckert’s refusal to do so for “legal” reasons sparked tension between the two men, Garcia backing the publication of a redacted version of his report.
His inquiry also coincided with a raft of leaked documents detailing the activity of several executive committee members before and after the 2010 vote, particularly that of Bin Hammam. The Qatari was accused of operating a slush fund to secure support for his country’s bid, although it seems more likely he paid bribes as part of his failed attempt to oust Sepp Blatter as Fifa’s president.
The 2022 World Cup organisers have always stressed that Bin Hammam was not part of their operation.
The imminent switch of the tournament to November has cast further doubt on the validity of Qatar’s original bid, as have revelations over its treatment of migrant workers helping prepare the country to host the tournament, hundreds of whom have died, with thousands more suffering inhumane abuse.
More recently, it has been accused of funding Isil, the terrorist group which has beheaded several westerners and released footage of their executions in recent months.
by ROTMANLUV 2023-07-08, 17:34
