FIFA President Sepp Blatter holds up the name of Qatar during the official announcement of the 2022 World Cup host country at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich Dec. 2, 2010. (At right) A man reads French football magazine ‘France Football’ with the ‘Qatargate’ on front page in Paris Tuesday. — AFP







PARIS — France Football magazine has raised questions about FIFA’s awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, alleging it was tainted by corruption and collusion involving top figures in the game.



The weekly publication said in its latest edition published Tuesday that the awarding of football’s most prestigious tournament had “a whiff of scandal that begs the only question worth asking: should the vote be declared null and void?”.



To back up its claims, the magazine, which dubbed the affair “Qatargate”, quoted what it said was an internal email in which FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke allegedly said that the tiny Gulf state had “bought the 2022 World Cup”.



Valcke subsequently claimed a misunderstanding and insisted that the tone of the email was “light-hearted”. France Football also quoted former FIFA media chief Guido Tognoni, who was kicked out of the organization in 2003, as saying he believed there were “strong suspicions” that members were compromised over the 33.75-million-euro ($25 million) Qatari bid.

Key figures in making Qatar’s case included the now-banned former Asian football chief Mohammed Bin Hammam, FIFA vice president Julio Grondona of Argentina and Ricardo Teixeira, who quit Brazil’s football federation and FIFA over graft claims.



The magazine also said there was a “secret meeting” at the French presidential palace in Paris on Nov. 23, 2010 — some 10 days before the crucial vote to decide the 2022 competition venue. Attending were then-president Nicolas Sarkozy, Qatari Prince Tamin Bin Hamad Al-Thani, UEFA President Michel Platini and Sebastien Bazin, representing PSG owners Colony Capital, who at the time were in financial difficulty.



“During this meeting, the question repeatedly came up of a buy-out of Paris Saint-Germain by the Qataris, an increase in their shareholding of the Lagardere group, the creation of a sports (television) channel to challenge Canal+ — which Sarkozy wanted to weaken — all in exchange for a promise: that Platini did not give his vote to the United States, as he intended to, but to Qatar.”



PSG was eventually bought by Qatar Sports Investment in June 2011. BeIn Sport, a subsidiary of Doha-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera, launched last year and took the television rights to show live French football from Canal+.



According to France Football, “the Americans would be odds-on favorites to be handed the 2022 World Cup in the event that Qatar’s designation was withdrawn or sidelined”.



Competition organizers were quoted as saying: “We won the World Cup 2022 bid by respecting from beginning to end the highest ethical and moral standards, such as they were defined in the rules and regulations.”

FIFA told AFP it had no comment to make on the subject. But a spokesman pointed out that its ethical commission said last Thursday that he was to conduct a “wide-ranging inquiry” into the awarding of the 2018 edition to Russia and 2022 to Qatar.



European football chief Michel Platini hit out at the claims Tuesday.

Platini said in a statement to AFP that “to believe that my choice went to Qatar 2022 in exchange for deals between the French state and Qatar is just pure speculation”, denouncing it as a fabrication. “I don’t rule out taking anyone to court who questions my integrity in this vote,” he said.



Platini added: “As I’ve always stated, president Sarkozy would never have asked me to vote for Qatar 2022 because he knows that I’m my own man. I made my choice with complete independence following a simple logic ... opening up countries who have never organized major sporting events.

“With the same concern for transparency, it was me who revealed to the media that a few weeks before the vote I was invited to dinner by Nicolas Sarkozy.” — AFP