Platini claims victories of Russia and Qatar "beautiful"

By Andrew Warshaw

December 10 – UEFA President Michel Platini says there was nothing wrong with last week’s controversial World Cup ballots which, he said, reflected a clear philosophy to take the tournament to new destinations.

Platini, as leader of the eight European voting members of FIFA, had a crucial role to play in the 2018 and 2022 votes but says criticism of Russia and Qatar being selected as host nations has been overplayed.

Platini, quizzed at the end of UEFA’s Executive Committee meeting in Prague, said Russia offered a powerful argument as to why it should stage the World Cup.

“Russia asked why they didn’t have the right to organise the World Cup and said it had already been held 10 times in Western Europe,” Platini explained.

“I think maybe the Executive Committee were sensitive to this.

“The same thing applies to Qatar and the Arab world. Morocco has applied to host the World Cup four times and lost, Egypt have also failed and Qatar asked when will the Middle East have this opportunity.

“Maybe the members of the Executive Committee thought it was a good opportunity to go to that part of the world once and for all, a region that has never hosted the World Cup, so if we’re talking about developing football worldwide, which is ultimately the goal of institutions such as FIFA or if we’re talking about European football, which is the goal of UEFA, well it’s something beautiful.

“We opened new frontiers by taking the World Cup to Africa and maybe the Executive Committee felt it was time to open more new frontiers.

“There was nothing illogical about this.”

Platini, who is understood to have voted for both victorious candidates, claimed the heat of Qatar will be no worse than in parts of the United States in 1994.

“In the 1994 World Cup in the United States, the temperature in Dallas, if I’m not mistaken, was 45 Celsius and nobody criticised us at the time,” said Platini.

But he agreed that holding the tournament in January, the Qatari winter, could be an alternative as well as staging some games in neighbouring countries.

“I agree, football in the Gulf in January, that would be easier than June, why not, it’s possible.” he said.

“However, many things would have to be changed in the calendar, what would we do to reorganise ourselves and how much rest would be given to the players?

“Would we have February off and restart the season in March?”

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