Qatar bids to defend World Cup allegations

The organisers of Qatar’s bid to host the 2022 World Cup have denied allegations that a senior Qatari soccer official made payments in order to win support for the bid.

In a robust defence of its campaign to host the event, Qatar 2022 criticised the allegations of corruption that have overshadowed the buildup to the Brazilian tournament.

“These allegations are baseless and riddled with innuendo designed to tarnish the reputation of Qatar’s 2022 Bid Committee,” said organisers.

They said the claims appeared to be deliberately timed to coincide with an investigation by Fifa, world soccer’s governing body, into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Russia won the right to host the tournament in 2018.

Michael Garcia, the US lawyer leading the probe, said he would consider any evidence brought before him before releasing a final report.

If corruption was proved, Qatar could be stripped of the Cup, or at least face a challenge to its position as host either through a re-vote or other processes.

“It should be clear that these leaks are not an attempt to shine light on the 2018/2022 bidding process,” the statement said.

“They are, instead, a flagrant attempt to prejudice an ongoing independent investigation. Certainly, if the source of these leaks were genuinely concerned with the evidence, they would have provided the leaked documents to Mr Garcia, as he requested, instead of offering them to the media.”

The Sunday Times reported recently that some of the “millions of documents” it had seen linked payments by former Fifa executive committee member Mohamed Bin Hammam to officials to win backing for Qatar’s World Cup bid.

Bin Hammam has not commented on his involvement since he was banned for life from soccer in 2012.

The Qatar 2022 statement confirmed that it had a “relationship” with Bin Hammam, but repeated earlier denials that he was a part of the official bid team.

“We have nothing to hide... we strictly adhered to Fifa’s rules and regulations.”

The newspaper released details of its latest report, in which it said Fifa bosses had been warned in a “secret terror briefing” prior to the 2010 vote that there was a “high risk” of a terrorist attack shutting down the event.

It said Fifa’s executive committee was briefed on the report written by André Pruis, the South African police chief in charge of security at the 2010 World Cup.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter said last month it had been “a mistake” to award the finals to the country in the summer due to the heat, but later said his quote had been mistranslated. Qatar 2022 addressed the issue of the heat in its statement.

“We developed cooling technology to cope with the climate of the Middle East, technology that would prove enormously valuable for nations in similar climates around the world,” it said.