Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter says the choice to award the 2022 World Cup finals to Qatar was a “mistake”. In 2010, FIFA’s govt committee voted 14-8 for Qatar to host the match forward of the United States. “It was a mistake,” Blatter mentioned in an interview with AFP’s German sports activities subsidiary SID. “It was based on a decision when I was president, and therefore I bear part of the responsibility for it.”

Blatter says he voted for the United States to host the 2022 match and blames then-UEFA president Michel Platini for swinging the vote in Qatar’s favour on the behest of then-French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarkozy had really useful to Platini “that he and his people should vote for Qatar”, Blatter mentioned. The former FIFA president’s model of occasions has been denied by Platini.

Platini advised French investigators that whereas he attended a lunch on the Elysee Palace with Sarkozy and then-Qatari crown prince Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani shortly earlier than the vote, “the president (Sarkozy) never asked me to vote for one country or another, but I got the impression that he supported Qatar.”

The Qatar World Cup is the primary to be held within the Middle East and the primary throughout the Northern Hemisphere winter. It takes place from 20 November to 18 December.

The vote to award the match to Qatar was surrounded by accusations of corruption. “I didn’t care if someone was influenced here or there,” Blatter mentioned, including that because the voting course of went on, he realised that “other forces were at work”.

“The Qataris didn’t give gifts to the people who were voting, they gave them to their countries,” Blatter mentioned.

Blatter was FIFA president for 17 years however was pressured to step down in 2015 over allegations he unlawfully organized a switch of two million Swiss francs ($2.2 million) to Platini, who was additionally pressured to resign from his place at FIFA.

Promoted

FIFA initially banned Blatter from soccer for eight years, later lowered to 6, over the fee to Platini. Blatter’s ban was prolonged to 2028 for violations of FIFA’s code of ethics.

Blatter and Platini have been discovered not responsible of fraud at a trial in Switzerland in July.