FIFA president Sepp Blatter said Qatar was in no danger of being stripped of the 2022 World Cup as new questions arose over the awarding of hosting rights.

The world football chief reiterated his backing for the tournament after a British newspaper published fresh allegations about the bidding process.

“Ladies and gentlemen, believe me, if we see what has been said, what’s told around the world, it’s by those who are not involved exactly (in) what happens in football,” Blatter told delegates at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) awards in
Manila.

“The World Cup 2022 will be played in Qatar.”

Blatter was speaking after the Sunday Times stated Britain’s bidding team for the 2018 World Cup, which was subsequently awarded to Russia, had a secret database containing fresh allegations about the 2018 and 2022 hosting races.

 

 

 

A dossier compiled by the newspaper and published by the Culture, Media and Sport select committee in Britain accuses Russia
and Qatar of engaging in votetrading and vote-buying while England’s 2018 bid are alleged to have engineered a failed vote-swap with their counterparts in the South Korea 2022 bid.

All three organisations have always denied any wrongdoing, and a report published recently by Hans-Joachim Eckert, the chairman of the adjudicatory chamber of FIFA’s ethics committee, cleared Russia and Qatar to host the 2018 and 2022 tournaments.

The chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee, John Whittingdale, admitted none of the allegations in the dossier had been proven but said they gave the impression of FIFA being a “deeply corrupt organisation and the whole of the World Cup bidding process was completely flawed.”

The latest revelations come after news that three current FIFA executive committee members plus former member Franz Beckenbauer are under investigation by ethics investigator Michael Garcia.

Spain’s Angel Maria Villar Llona, Michel D’Hooghe from Belgium and Worawi Makudi from Thailand are among the names being looked at for possible ethics code breaches,  according to sources close to the world governing body.