DOHA – Qatar on Sunday strongly denied a British newspaper report that a former top Qatari football official paid more than $5 million to win support for its bid to host the 2022 World Cup.
“We vehemently deny all allegations of wrong-doing,” said Qatar’s WC2022 organizing committee. “We will take whatever steps are necessary to defend the integrity of Qatar’s bid and our lawyers are looking into this matter.”
Britain’s Sunday Times said it had obtained millions of emails, documents and bank transfers relating to alleged payments by Mohamed bin Hammam, then a member of the executive committee of FIFA, the sport’s world governing body.
It alleged that Bin Hammam, who is also a former Asian Football Confederation president, used slush funds to pay cash to top football officials to win a “groundswell” of support for Qatar’s World Cup bid.
“We say again that Mohamed Bin Hammam played no official or unofficial role in Qatar’s 2022 Bid Committee,” the Qatari statement read.
It said Qatar’s bid team “had to convince Mr. Bin Hammam of the merits” of the Gulf state’s bid, just as was the case with other members of the FIFA executive committee.
“The right to host the tournament was won because it was the best bid and because it is time for the Middle East to host its first FIFA World Cup,” it said.
FIFA is investigating the 2010 vote that awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar and the 2018 tournament to Russia, following previous corruption accusations.
A report by FIFA chief investigator Michael Garcia, a top US lawyer, is to be finalized this year.
“We are cooperating fully with Mr. Garcia’s on-going investigation and remain totally confident that any objective enquiry will conclude we won the bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup fairly,” the committee’s statement said.