Zwanziger continues to doubt ethics of Qatar's 2022 World Cup bid

By Andrew Warshaw

October 24 – The man who replaced Franz Beckenbauer at the top table of FIFA has again questioned the decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.

New Executive Committee member Theo Zwanziger (pictured) says some of his fellow members were pressurised by their Governments to vote for the tiny Gulf state last December.

Qatar officials have been at pains ever since the biggest upset in bidding history to dismiss allegations of foul play in their quest to land the World Cup following a raft of unfounded allegations against them.

They are adamant they won the vote fair and square but Zwanziger, the 66-year-old President of the German Football Association (DFB), has now reignited the debate.

Significantly, Zwanziger was appointed last week to head one of three new anti-corruption committees to clean up FIFA.

Barring any dramatic incriminating evidence against them – and none has so far been proven – Qatar are highly unlikely to be stripped as hosts retrospectively.

But Zwanziger has wasted no time making his point about the process by which they won 2022 by a landslide.

A constant critic of the decision, he told a German newspaper: “In my opinion the vote for Qatar was decided by some members of the executive committee who are in a very close relationship with their governments, who pushed the political case for Qatar.

“I think the choice of Qatar from a sporting perspective is still questionable because, due to the summer climate and the size of the country, a World Cup should not be held there.”

“This was also evident in the report of the [FIFA] Evaluation Committee.”

Zwanziger, who was not on the FIFA Executive Committee when the decision was taken, referred to the infamous email leaked by former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner that was sent to him by FIFA general secretary Jérôme Valcke (pictured).

Valcke wrote that former Asian football chief Mohamed Bin Hammam, Qatar’s most prominent FIFA member until being banned last summer for taking bribes, “thought you can buy FIFA as they [Qatar] bought the World Cup”.

Valcke has persistently argued, as have Qatar, that what he meant was that the oil-rich Gulf state had the financial might to throw everything behind its campaign.

But Zwanziger told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung Valcke’s remarks more likely referred to political interference and could not be left unresolved.

“I have not forgotten this sentence – this must be cleared up,” he said.

“I think the word ‘buy’ does not necessarily mean that bribes to certain individuals were paid, but rather a political influence was meant.”

Certain to play a prominent role in FIFA’s two-year road to reform, Zwanziger added: “We at FIFA are the ‘good and the powerful’, the others who are against us, are ‘always the bad guys’.

“This kind of thinking needs to change.”

Although it was not apparently within the remit of the new anti-corruption timetable announced by Sepp Blatter (pictured right), Zwanziger (left) also said it was time the International Football Association Board (IFAB), the game’s law making body, which is made up of the four British associations and four representatives from FIFA, was scrapped.

The IFAB came into effect in 1886 – 18 years before FIFA – but there have long been suspicions that a lobby of senior FIFA members view it as an anachronism and want it removed.

“I am convinced that things cannot continue,” said Zwanziger.

“The methods are rather like the Empire and is not a modern democracy.

“You propose a sensible amendment and often you do not even get a proper answer.”

He said his own Federation, the DFB, had proposed a sin-bin experiment in amateur or lower league football but that it had been rejected “without explanation”.

“I don’t think that’s very transparent and democratic.”

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