By Paul Nicholson
January 5 – President of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), Kuwaiti Sheikh Ahmad Fahad Al-Sabah, has repeated his assertion that Qatar’s 2022 World Cup has been the subject of a “racist campaign”. He also questioned the independence of an American investigator to lead the FIFA ethics investigation into the world cup bidding.
Sheikh Ahmad, speaking on Qatari-based Al-Dawri Wal Kass television, said that the negative reporting by western media of Qatar’s World Cup win and its subsequent preparations for hosting the event in 2022 have been an attempt to mix politics with sport – two areas he said that should be kept separate.
The Kuwaiti has become a major powerbroker in world sports politics via his leadership of the OCA and his ability to unite the block of nations for a common purpose. He was a major supporter in the election of German Thomas Bach to the Olympic movement presidency. His support of Bahraini Shaik Salman bin Ebrahim Al-Khalifa for the presidency of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) was the deciding factor in his election to lead the confederation.
He said that he would be backing current FIFA president Sepp Blatter for re-election this May for a fifth term as leader of world football.
Sheikh Ahmed has recently become more vocal in his support of the Qatar World Cup organisation. He said that the 2022 World Cup was important not just for Qatar but for the region as a whole.
“Qatar profile for hosting the World Cup 2022 was complete, and everyone on the streets was happy and filled with joy for such win,” he said.
Talking about the FIFA ethics investigation into 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process, he questioned whether the choice of American investigator, Michael Garcia, to look into the Qatari bid was an independent choice when taking into consideration his country lost the race for 2022 World Cup hosting to Qatar.
Garcia’s investigation into the bid was deemed by head of FIFA’s Adjudicatory Chamber judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, in his summary, not to have found any evidence that “compromised the integrity” of the bidding process as a whole. Garcia subsequently disputed Eckert’s summary of his report, but did not specifically say what he was disputing except that the findings were “incomplete and erroneous”. Garcia appealed the summary but lost, and subsequently resigned his role as head of FIFA’s investigation unit. FIFA’s executive committee has subsequently said that it will publish a fuller but redacted version of the Garcia report.
The politics of the World Cup bidding and the often hysterical aftermath has uncovered deeply entrenched, damaging and differing political and cultural beliefs between the east and west. Beliefs and positions that go beyond and have very little to do with the playing of football. Clearly trust is in short supply and wounds have been painfully felt. It is something of a cliché, but the perhaps the only real healing (towards trust and respect) will come from the playing of the game itself.
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