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Qatar's "scandalous" World Cup award: vote-buying, corruption - and a friend of the emir right in the middle

2022-09-20T17:26:56.308Z


The World Cup award to Qatar was unclean: electors were accused, corruption exposed. Right in the middle: Mohammed bin Hammam, who brought the World Cup to the desert.


The World Cup award to Qatar was unclean: electors were accused, corruption exposed.

Right in the middle: Mohammed bin Hammam, who brought the World Cup to the desert.

Doha – Up to 50 degrees in summer, almost no football culture and an autocratically governed state that is regularly confronted with allegations of human rights violations: At first glance, there are few arguments for a football World Cup in Qatar.

The desert state itself likes to argue that the best application was simply submitted to the world association Fifa.

In fact, Qatar also owes the encouragement to Fifa cunning and agreements.

Mainly responsible for this: Mohamed bin Hammam, longtime head of the Asia Association and member of the Fifa Executive Committee.

He is considered the man who brought the World Cup to Qatar.

Also through voting agreements and bribe payments?

In an interview with

IPPEN.MEDIA's

Merkur.de

, former DFL boss Andreas Rettig described the awarding of the World Cup

as "scandalous".

He is regarded as an expert in the industry and deals intensively with the realization of world championship awards.

Hammam played a "key role" in the award process, says Rettig.

World Cup 2022: Fifa executive committee responsible for award - did Qatar bribe?

Qatar was apparently able to win the bid thanks to the corruption-prone World Cup award process, which has since been shelved.

In 2010, Fifa decided on the 2022 World Cup venue. 24 electors, members of the Executive Committee, were supposed to decide on the venue at the time.

In the end there were only 22 because the delegates from Nigeria and Tahiti had been caught trying to sell votes beforehand.

The majority of the other illustrious group, from Germany to Trinidad and Tobago, were only later to be confronted with allegations of corruption.

In their book Boycotted Qatar 2022, Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling and Bernd Beyer called the Executive Committee a “criminal organization”.

Incidentally, it is no longer just two dozen that decide, but all Fifa member states.

For the first time in its history, Fifa awarded two finals at the same time twelve years ago;

Russia was also awarded the 2018 World Cup in 2010. A gateway for agreements.

"This favored Qatar's election," says Rettig.

The venues to choose from were:

  • 2018

    : Russia, England, Netherlands/Belgium, Spain/Portugal

  • 2022

    : Qatar, USA, Japan, Australia, South Korea

World Cup in Qatar: "How did the super-rich oil sheikhs convince the corrupt Fifa officials?"

The election procedure: until a country achieves the absolute majority of votes, one applicant is eliminated.

Ultimately, Qatar prevailed 14:8 against the USA.

Some of the 14 votes in the actually secret ballot can be assigned to corresponding electors.

Be it through research by journalists or personal statements.

Thomas Kistner, author of the book "Fifa Mafia", asks: "How did the super-rich oil sheikhs convince the corrupt officials of Fifa?" A rhetorical question.

Explosive: There are allegations of corruption against the majority of the delegates.

"Just five years after the award, half of the electors were banned and criminal investigations were also started," explains Rettig.

Only a few are officially condemned, which critics also attribute to Fifa's moderate will to clarify.

The World Football Association has denied allegations of bribery, as has the Qatari Association.

+

Was managing director of the DFL from 2013 to 2015: Andreas Rettig, who also acted as manager in Freiburg, Cologne and Augsburg in the Bundesliga.

© IMAGO/Harald Bremes

World Cup 2022: How Qatar's bin Hammam is said to have bought votes

According to US prosecutors, at least four delegates have been bribed with direct payments.

The director of the US tax investigation spoke of a "world championship of corruption" with regard to Qatar.

When the terms corruption and FIFA come up, one name is not far off: Jack Warner, former FIFA Vice President and delegate from Trinidad and Tobago.

The FBI investigated him, and Warner was arrested on eight counts of corruption.

According to the US indictment, he had also sold his vote in previous World Cup awards.

According to the British 

Daily Telegraph

 , he received 1.5 million euros from Qatar for his World Cup vote.

A witness also testified under oath before a US court that South America's late soccer boss Nicolás Leoz (Paraguay) is said to have received one million dollars.

He and the other two South American representatives Ricardo Teixeira (Brazil) and Julio Grondona (Argentina, also deceased) sold their vote, according to the 2020 US Justice indictment.

The lengthy process continues.

The British

Sunday Times

reported, citing secret documents, that bin Hammam had paid delegates a total of five million dollars.

According to the newspaper, $1.5 million each went to Jacques Anouma (Ivory Coast) and Issa Hayatou (Cameroon).

Other voices could have secured Qatar veiled.

Two examples: The commodities company Petrolina, owned by Cyprus ex-member Mario Lefkaritis, is one of Qatar's most important partners.

Business was intensified around the awarding of the World Cup.

Shortly after Michel Platini's French vote for Qatar, his son rose to become European head of Qatar Sports Investments, owner of Paris Saint-Germain.

Another example of the close Qatari-French relations.

“Qatar won due to supreme political intervention from the French side.

You know that, it's been proven," said the then Fifa President Sepp Blatter - who also spoke of German influence.

Messrs Nicolas Sarkozy and Christian Wulff tried to influence their electors.

That's why we now have a World Cup in Qatar.

Sepp Blatter, 2015 in the world on Sunday.

(On Merkur.de request, Christian Wulff denies political influence)

Bin Hammam and the bought summer fairy tale: "A rogue who thinks evil of it"

Despite all the justified criticism of Fifa's corrupt award processes, Germany itself is also being criticized.

After all, the 2006 World Cup was also apparently “negotiated”.

Among other things with a voice of Mohamed bin Hammam?

"If you look at the history of awarding the 2006 World Cup, you might think there was a deal between Europe and Asia," says Rettig.

Bin Hammam was "right in the middle" and "very committed".

Because Germany needed the four votes of the Asia Association for the bid to assert itself against competitor South Africa, as Rettig explains.

"Conversely, Qatar needed Europe's votes against the USA in 2010." Here, too, "the Emir's close confidant," as Rettig bin Hammam calls it, was involved.

"A rogue who thinks evil of it."

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World Cup award to Germany: Qatar, Beckenbauer - and 10 million francs

When it comes to the summer fairy tale, the sum of 6.7 million euros (at that time ten million Swiss francs) always haunts the room.

Franz Beckenbauer, head of the German World Cup organizing committee, is said to have borrowed the sum from former Adidas boss Robert Louis-Dreyfus.

The millions then ended up in the account of bin Hammams, then the Qatari member of the executive committee.

It is proven that money has flowed.

For what, however, is unclear.

Those involved remain silent and are not really questioned by Fifa.

Beckenbauer says there was no corruption surrounding the award of the World Cup to Germany.

In 2018, bin Hammam finally admitted to having received the sum from Germany.

However, he insists that the money did not buy a vote.

The fact that Hammam played a key role in the World Cup award processes for the 2006 and 2022 tournaments "does not reflect well on him," says Rettig, joking: "I wouldn't necessarily propose him to chair the FIFA ethics committee."

Inside Qatar

This text is part of the Inside Qatar series.

Until the football World Cup in winter, we want to give you regular background reports on the (sports) political situation in Qatar - and look at different topics.

If you have any suggestions, suggested topics or criticism, please contact andreas.schmid@redaktion.ippen.media.

Mohammed bin Hammam: Katari is said to have "kept brother" Blatter "on the throne".

Bin Hammam is said to have attracted attention earlier with a loose-fitting wallet.

Author Kistner writes that he was primarily responsible for Sepp Blatter securing his power as FIFA President.

Without the Qatari "brother", as Blatter bin Hammam calls it, the Fifa boss would have been overthrown much earlier.

The head of world football is elected by the heads of the respective associations.

Voting is part of good form.

British sportswriter Andrew Jennings says of bin Hammam that he "provided the money for 12 years to buy votes that kept Blatter on the presidential throne".

Why?

Presumably to consolidate his power in the world association - and to pave the way towards Qatar 2022.

Incidentally, Qatar's World Cup organizing committee regularly asserted that bin Hammam had acted in isolation from all the allegations.

As early as 2014, Emir Al Thani said that he was not involved in the award and that Qatar had observed “the highest standards of ethics and integrity”.

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At the President's side: Mohamed bin Hammam with Sepp Blatter, FIFA boss from 1998 to 2016.

© IMAGO/Ulmer

Mohammed bin Hammam: The man who brought the World Cup to Qatar

Who pays, creates.

This credo applies to many Qatari businessmen - and also runs through the life of Mohammed bin Hammam.

He was born in Doha in 1949, the son of an entrepreneur and a nurse.

He and his ten siblings are doing relatively well.

Even if Qatar had not yet discovered the mineral resources of natural gas and oil at that time and only rose to become a glossy state in the 1970s.

Even before his 25th birthday, bin Hammam founded his own company - the construction company Kemco, through which he is said to have later concealed bribe payments.

Kemco and bin Hammam

did not comment on the allegations when asked by

Merkur.de .

Sport and especially football played a big role in bin Hammam's life.

He was president of Qatari first division club Al-Rayyan SC for 15 years.

There were several league titles under his direction, which sharpened the club leader's profile.

Bin Hammam was also the head of the Qatar Volleyball and Table Tennis Federation.

In 1992 he was promoted to President of the Football Association.

An association that was still completely insignificant at the time, which regularly failed in the preliminary round at the Asian championships and was miles away from qualifying for the World Cup.

Bin Hammam, a friend of Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, wanted to change that.

And if Qatar wasn't able to qualify for the finals through sporting means, it was because of the venue: the World Cup hosts are seeded.

The alleged bribe payments had no consequences for a long time.

"That shows what influential partners he has in his environment," says Rettig.

It wasn't until 2012, when the World Cup in Qatar had already been decided, that Fifa banned bin Hammam for life for corruption.

He is said to have bribed Caribbean officials with a sum of $40,000, which seems ridiculous by Qatari standards.

Bin Hammam then resigned from all offices.

He'd done his job anyway.

(as)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-09-20

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