July 24 – Having just wrapped one World Cup, FIFA’s top brass are already back on the road with FIFA president Sepp Blatter and general secretary Jerome Valcke in Qatar last night meeting His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani and HH Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani.
FIFA President Blatter was visiting Qatar at the invitation the Emir and they held a one-hour meeting to review, according to a story on FIFA.com, “existing relations of cooperation between the State of Qatar and football’s world governing body and looked at ways of enhancing them further.”
FIFA’s World Cup bidding investigative team, lead by US lawyer Michael Garcia, is now due to deliver its report in September and top of the report findings will be whether any evidence has been found of any wrongdoing by bidders – with the inevitable focus falling back on to Qatar though the investigation has been into all the bids for 2018 and 2022.
Meanwhile, Qatar has steadfastedly and doggedly gone about its business of preparing for 2022, most recently implementing the first stage of labour reforms as construction on World Cup infrastructure projects ramps up.
FIFA’s website said that discussion covered “the development of football in the region and the ongoing reforms of labour rights to ensure the welfare of migrant workers. The meeting also reviewed the achievements accomplished on projects related to the organisation of the tournament.”
“I was very pleased to meet today the highest political authority – the Emir of Qatar. It was great to see his and Qatar’s commitment to use the 2022 FIFA World Cup to achieve positive social change and to promote the host country and region. Qatar takes its responsibility as hosts seriously. We also discussed the importance of further developing football in the region,” said Blatter.
FIFA are scheduled to be in Russia later this year where the possibility of reducing the number of host cities and stadia for the 2018 World Cup now looks like being a key agenda item.
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