Former FIFA executive committee member Jack Warner has been accused of receiving payments to help secure the World Cup for Qatar
According to reports in the Telegraph, Warner received a payment of $1.2m from a company controlled by former Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed Bin Hammam (pictured below) in December 2010. Bin Hammam is a former FIFA official from Qatar who was banned for life after evidence emerged that he had been involved in a bribery scandal with the Caribbean Football Union during a race for the FIFA presidency with everyone’s favourite administrator Sepp Blatter.
This most recent scandal casts more doubt over the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar, which has been the topic of much discussion since it was announced, and the timing of the payment, allegedly made a fortnight after Fifa’s 22-man executive committee voted to award the 2022 tournament to Qatar, makes for a picture that’s not too pretty.
Warner resigned from FIFA in 2012 following other allegations of financial wrong doing. Back in 2006 he was accused of selling tickets for an inflated price for the World Cup in Germany and he was also famously investigated by the BBC’s Panorama, when he was accused of doing it again for the tournament in South Africa. For their part, the Qatari 2022 Bid Committee have continued to strongly deny any allegations of wrongdoing, and we don’t expect to see any change in their position that they were legitimately awarded FIFA’s most prestigious prize.
Much of the controversy about the tournament has surrounded Qatar’s suitability as a venue, and there have been strong suggestions that the tournament will be moved to the Winter in order to avoid the boiling temperatures in summer, when it regularly reaches well over 40C. If you thought it was tough for the Irish in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando back in 1994, you haven’t seen anything yet…
Hat-tip to the Guardian
