$2 mn sent to child of FIFA member before 2022 World Cup award: report

Berlin (AFP) – A sum of $2 million was sent to the 10-year-old daughter of a FIFA official prior to Qatar being awarded the hosting of the 2022 World Cup, according to Bild.

The German daily is publishing from Tuesday American independent investigator Michael Garcia’s report into alleged bribery and corruption during the bidding for the hosting of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

In an extract of the article released on Monday evening, the popular tabloid claims to have got hold of the report of more than 400 pages which has never been properly published by world football’s governing body.

According to Bild, in the report Garcia reveals that “a former executive committee member congratulated members of the Qatari federation and thanked them by mail for a transfer of several hundred thousand euros” just after Qatar was awarded the 2022 tournament.

“Two million dollars from an unknown source arrived in the savings account of the 10-year-old daughter of a FIFA member,” add Bild.

The newspaper adds that “three executive members of FIFA with the right to vote went to a party in Rio de Janeiro in a private jet belonging to the Qatari federation before the vote to decide who would host the competition.”

The Aspire Academy in Qatar, one of the biggest sports academies in the world, was also “implicated in a decisive manner in the manipulation of FIFA members who had the right to vote,” the paper adds.

Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup in late 2010 and the result of the vote has been the source of enormous controversy ever since.

Following Garcia’s investigation, the adjudicatory chamber of FIFA’s ethics committee noted that there had been suspicious behaviour during the bidding process but not enough to call into question the decision to give Qatar the 2022 finals or Russia the 2018 tournament.

Garcia resigned as head of FIFA’s investigatory body in December 2014 in protest at what he described as FIFA’s “incomplete and erroneous” summary of his report.