Picking Qatar to host the World Cup was a mistake, former Fifa president Sepp Blatter has mentioned, as he cited a gathering between Nicolas Sarkozy and Michel Platini for swaying key votes.

The 86-year-old spoke to the Swiss newspaper group Tamedia in his first main interview since being acquitted with Mr Platini in July of monetary misconduct at Fifa after a trial in a federal felony court docket.

“It’s a country that’s too small,” Mr Blatter mentioned of Qatar, the smallest host by measurement because the 1954 match in Switzerland. “Football and the World Cup are too big for that.”

The 32 groups will play 64 video games in eight stadiums in and across the metropolis of Doha which has been remodeled since 2010 by huge development tasks to arrange for the World Cup.

Games begin on November 20 with about 1.2 million worldwide guests anticipated to reach in Qatar through the World Cup. With restricted locations to remain within the host nation, some will commute from neighbouring states.

“It was a bad choice. And I was responsible for that as president at the time,” mentioned Mr Blatter, who has mentioned he voted for the United States. Its bid was overwhelmed by Qatar within the ultimate spherical of a five-candidate contest to be 2022 host.

It grew to become a part of Fifa lore that an anticipated US victory swung in the direction of Qatar at a gathering that Mr Sarkozy hosted in Paris within the week earlier than the December 2 2010 vote by Fifa’s government committee.

Ex-French footballer Mr Platini, then president of European soccer physique Uefa and a vp of Fifa, was invited by then-French president Mr Sarkozy to his official residence. The crown prince of Qatar, now the Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, was additionally there.

Mr Blatter on Tuesday repeated his declare that Mr Sarkozy put strain on Mr Platini, and once more gave his model of a phone name Mr Platini made to him after the Paris assembly that the World Cup voting plan had modified.

“Thanks to the four votes of Mr Platini and his (UEFA) team, the World Cup went to Qatar rather than the United States. It’s the truth,” Mr Blatter mentioned of the 14-8 voting outcome.

In feedback to the Associated Press in 2015, Mr Platini broadly confirmed the importance of that assembly in Paris.

“Sarkozy never asked me to vote for Qatar, but I knew what would be good,” Mr Platini instructed an AP reporter in Zurich seven years in the past. He acknowledged that he “might have told” American officers that he can be voting for his or her 2022 bid.

Mr Blatter didn’t particularly check with criticism of Qatar over labour and human rights points since 2010.

However, he did query why his successor as Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, has moved to reside in Qatar for not less than the previous yr.

Mr Blatter famous rising calls, by rights teams and a number of other Fifa member federations together with the US and England, to create a compensation fund for households of staff who died or had been injured. Qatar’s authorities has resisted the calls and described them as a “publicity stunt”.

“What can Fifa say if its president is in the same boat as Qatar?” Mr Blatter mentioned of Mr Infantino selecting to reside in Doha.

Mr Blatter, who went to Moscow through the 2018 World Cup as a visitor of Russia whereas he and Mr Platini had been suspended by Fifa from soccer, instructed the Swiss newspaper reporters he would watch video games within the coming weeks on tv at his house in Zurich.