According to a report from the Times, Qatar has offered a total of $880m to FIFA as ‘secret payment’.
According to leaked files procured by The Sunday Times, Qatar has allegedly made a huge payment to FIFA over the host rights of 2022 World Cup.
Qatar won the rights to host the World Cup in 2022 in the 2010 ballot.
The documents reportedly reveal that Qatari-run state broadcast Al Jazeera – which is owned by Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, signed a television contract making a huge offer of $400m to FIFA. The contract was signed merely 21 days before they were awarded the 2022 World Cup.
According to The Times, the contract also included an unprecedented fee of $100m – a ‘success fee’, as the report calls it.
The fee would only be paid to FIFA if Qatar was successful in winning the rights to host the World Cup.
Qatar bribed FIFA?
“In the event that the 2022 competition is awarded to the state of Qatar, Al Jazeera shall, in addition to the . . . rights fee, pay to Fifa into the designated account the monetary amount of $100m,” the document read.
FIFA will receive the amount in the next month, according to the terms of the contract.
The Sunday Times further allege that Qatar made another offer of $480m three years later – making a total of $880m to gain and retain the rights to host the tournament in 2022.
The contract is now under investigation of a bribery enquiry from Swiss police.
The leak of the documents come raises questions over the transparency of the process to award the hosting rights for the World Cup.
If the allegations are indeed true, Qatar effectively bought the rights to host the 32-nation tournament.
FIFA refused to make a comment on the allegations.
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What next?
The investigations are ongoing after the allegations were made online.
