By Andrew Warshaw
May 2 -FIFA presidential candidate Jerome Champagne says 2022 World Cup hosts Qatar should be recognised as “innocent unless proved guilty” by the ongoing investigation into the 2018 and 2022 voting process being led by FIFA’s chief investigator Michael Garcia.
But, he says, the workers rights issue in the Gulf state must be tackled satisfactorily.
“We have organised the World Cup in democracies since 1978 … and ideally it’s better in democracies than in regimes that aren’t,” said Champagne. “Regarding 2022, it’s totally fair that we take the tournament to an area which has never hosted it. (But) We cannot go to a World Cup, which is supposed to be a celebration of the game, knowing that workers are being inhumanely treated.
“Regarding a change of the dates, I have no problem with accommodating the needs of countries with special climactic conditions. But we should have done that before the vote, not after.”
On the subject of unproven corruption allegations that have swirled around ever since Qatar won the vote in December 2010, Champagne added: “We have been hearing about vote buying, collusion between bidders etc etc. My position is clear. We need to know. But innocent until proven guilty.”
Champagne, the former FIFA deputy director general who has been lobbying for support via a series of widely distributed manifesto papers, says he wants to restore FIFA’s tarnished image yet hasn’t yet decided whether he will stand if Sepp Blatter goes for a fifth term.
“A lot of accusations levelled at FIFA have been fair but others are unfair,” he said. “Mr Blatter, like everyone else including me, has made mistakes. But I think he’s an honest man. I felt privileged to work with him when I did.”
Speaking at a conference in Liverpool, Champagne re-iterated that correcting the growing imbalance between the haves and have-nots, especially in Europe, is fundamental to the future of the game.
“Twenty years ago, in spite of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain…it was possible for Real Madrid to meet a club from Hungary or for a mid-sized club from Norway or a French club in the pre-Qatari ownership era to reach a final. Now it’s finished.
“We have replaced the political Iron Curtain, which was not dividing Europe in football, by a financial Iron Curtain which really does divide it. You have clubs that are so rich, their only development policy is a chequebook policy.”
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