Qatar’s World Cup 2022 Bid Committee said on Tuesday that it was not aware of alleged bribes paid by the former head of the country’s football association, Mohamed Bin Hammam, to former FIFA Executive Committee member Jack Warner. The statement comes as a response to a March report in the London-based Daily Telegraph that claimed that a company owned by Bin Hamman paid Warner $1.2 million for his vote as a member of the bid selection committee.
Qatar’s organizing committee said in a statement that “The 2022 Bid Committee strictly adhered to FIFA’s bidding regulations in compliance with their code of ethics,” and that it was unaware of “any allegations surrounding business dealings between private individuals.”
Months after the December 2010 vote that granted hosting duties to Russia and Qatar in 2018 and 2022, respectively, FIFA President Sepp Blatter admitted that the governing body had made a “bad mistake” in the bidding process, and suspended two FIFA Executive Committee members—Oceania representative Reynald Temarii and African executive committee member Amos Adamu—due to bribery allegations.
Bin Hammam later ran against Blatter in the 2011 election for FIFA president, but days before the vote, Bin Hammam was accused of bribing Caribbean FIFA officials to vote for him in a plot allegedly involving Warner. As a result, Blatter ran unopposed and was elected to a fourth presidential term, while Bin Hammam was banned for life from FIFA activities and Warner resigned from the executive committee and as president of CONCACAF, the North American football governing body.
Qatar will become the smallest nation to host the tournament, though its bid has drawn criticism from human rights groups, as 1,200 Indian and Nepalese migrant laborers have died in recent months due to substandard work conditions.
Read a debate in Americas Quarterly about whether FIFA’s corruption has hurt the beautiful game.
