As people continue to ask how the World Cup could’ve been assigned to Qatar, FIFA Board member Evelina Christillin reveals ‘there was a strange voting process’ for this tournament and Russia 2018.
Both of those competitions caused a great deal of controversy and were assigned on the same day in 2010.
While there were plenty of question marks around Russia, the Qatar tournament forced the complete revamp of the club and international schedule to move it to November and December, not to mention the fact homosexuality is illegal here and Qatar also pulled the plug at the last minute on a lucrative beer sponsorship.
“In 2010 there was a strange double vote on Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022,” Christillin – who also has close ties to Juventus – told Radio Capital.
“In that vote, it was only the Executive Committee that voted and not all the Federations, which is what happened afterwards.
“That was clearly a manipulated vote. Someone paid for this. It was a matter of ‘envelopes’ handed out. There will never again be a situation like the World Cup assigned to a nation like Qatar.
“If you look at the 2026 assignation, the next will be Canada, the United States and Mexico.”
The head of FIFA at the time was Sepp Blatter, who was forced to step down in 2015 because of a long-running investigation into corruption.
FIFA’s ethics committee banned Blatter and UEFA President Michel Platini from football for six years in 2015.