Is Sepp Blatter’s 'exit' a ploy to kill off Qatar 2022?
Sepp Blatter’s decision to 'quit' as FIFA chief was unexpected but Philippe Auclair asks whether there was an ulterior motive in play?
France Football, didn’t either. All of us reported on alleged cases of corruption, highlighted the inanity of holding a summer competition in the Gulf long before FIFA came to the same conclusion and moved it to November-December, creating havoc in the football calendar as a consequence.
READ MORE FROM PHILIPPE AUCLAIR ON THE QATAR WORLD CUP
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Qatar 2022 – A crisis of FIFA’s own making
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The world finally woke up to the horrifying conditions in which the migrants brought in – four flights from Kathmandu to Doha every day - to build the infrastructure needed for the tournament lived, and died, in their hundreds, possibly thousands, in the emirate. New corruption and collusion stories kept emerging regularly, until the burden of evidence became so overwhelming that very few could seriously doubt that the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups had – at least – been deeply flawed. Blatter knew it. Did he not confide that giving the World Cup to Qatar had been
‘a mistake’?
Spain and
Russia, preferred him to Prince Ali, the candidate put forward and publicly supported by
Michel Platini. Extraordinarily – to Western eyes -, should Blatter change his mind (who knows with him?) and decide that he won’t step down after all in four or six months’ time, when the Extraordinary Electoral Congress he’s called takes place, he’d stand a better chance of being elected than any of the potential candidates to his succession who’ve been mentioned so far.
After all, not once did he use the word ‘resign’ in his dramatic press conference on Tuesday.
A tempting hypothesis is that, by announcing his departure when nobody was expecting it (the fifteen journalists who had stayed in Zurich after the election thought that Blatter would say that Jerome Valcke had been relieved of his functions), the wily old fox has given himself a free hand to do what some say he’s longed to do for four and a half years: to clean up the house he’s looked after with a loose hand and a forgiving eye for decades, which probably means re-running the vote to award the 2022 World Cup, which is over seven years away.
This is by no means impossible. Should the ‘smoking gun’ be found, the incontrovertible proof that the bid regulations had been infringed upon to such an extent that the 2 December 2010 vote was invalid, FIFA’s Executive Committee would have the power to enforce a new ballot without fearing an unimaginably costly lawsuit. I am of the opinion that this ‘smoking gun’ has already been found, given the extensive revelations of multiple secret payments to football officials by the Qatari then-president of AFC and member of FIFA’s ExCo Mohammed bin Hammam, described by the Qataris themselves as ‘the greatest asset’ in their bid – before they strenuously denied that the now-disgraced, banned-for-life bin Hammam played any role, official or otherwise, in their campaign. A matter of perspective, perhaps; or common sense.