Accusations that Qatar bought the right to stage the 2022 World Cup deepened the corruption crisis at the heart of FIFA on Monday just as an apparently unscathed Sepp Blatter prepared to claim another term as president. World soccer's governing body has been beset by accusations of bribery involving members of its inner circle of executive committee members ever since the vote to decide the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups took place in Zurich last December.
On Monday, the allegation that Qatar paid members for their votes sprang from the top, as a leaked email from the organisation's general secretary Jerome Valcke making the claim was confirmed as genuine. It came just two days before FIFA delegates are due to vote in the presidential election, with the 75-year-old Swiss Blatter now the only candidate and poised to extend his 13-year spell at the head of the world's richest and most popular sport.
The email, shown to Reuters by FIFA vice-president Jack Warner, referred to Qatar's Mohamed bin Hammam, who was at that time a candidate to stand against Blatter in the presidential election. "For MBH, I never understood why he was running," Warner quoted the email from Valcke as saying. "If really he thought he had a chance or just being an extreme way to express how much he does not like anymore JSB (Blatter). "Or he thought you can buy FIFA as they bought the WC (World Cup)." Qatar denied the allegation while Bin Hammam said he had no idea why Valcke had made such a claim, which followed a steady drip of accusations about senior FIFA executives.
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