By Andrew Warshaw
October 17 – Michel Platini, who has openly admitted he voted for Qatar to stage the 2022 World Cup, says he would have no problem with a revote if proof emerged, as a result of FIFA ethics committee investigator Michael Garcia’s report into possible corruption, that there was any wrongdoing during the bid process.
The UEFA president is one of only a few FIFA executive committee members who have been prepared to say how they voted in December 2010.
He still believes there was no deception during the bid process but is happy to have the ballot taken again, a highly unlikely move whatever is in Garcia’s report into the 2018 and 2022 campaigns won by Russia and Qatar respectively.
“As far as I’m concerned, the vote was held in all transparency and we’ve always said that in the event of the slightest hint of corruption there’ll be a new vote,” said Platini. “But for now, we don’t know.”
Platini, a FIFA vice-president, is keen to see the sport developed in fresh parts of the world and has long promoted Qatar, constantly dismissing suggestions that he was influenced by a pre-ballot meeting between then French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Emir of Qatar.
“I was not leaned on,” he said again on French television. “The vote was to take the World Cup into a new region . . . the Arab world had lost seven times in a row in the bidding and it was important that it should have the World Cup.”
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