Sepp Blatter has cast further doubt on the integrity of World Cup votes, blaming Michel Platini for backing out of a secret FIFA pact to award the 2022 tournament to the United States and suggesting Qatar benefited from collusion.
Blatter’s comments come almost a year after a FIFA ethics investigation exonerated 2018 host Russia and 2022 winner Qatar of corruption in winning the contentious dual votes in 2010.
Blatter is provisionally suspended from FIFA presidency. Platini, the UEFA leader, is also serving a provisional 90-day suspension over a 2011 payment from FIFA authorized by Blatter.
Blatter suggests Platini was in on a “gentleman’s agreement” to back the United States over Qatar in the 2022 vote, which also featured Australia, South Korea and Japan, and to give Russia its first World Cup in 2018. “It has been agreed — let’s go to the two superpowers in the vote for the World Cup: let’s go to Russia and let’s go to the United States,” Blatter told Financial Times.
Blatter, though, insists that the voting pact was “changed by the governmental interference of Mr. Sarkozy ... and then (Platini) has brought some other voters with him.
Blatter suggests there was indeed collusion. “There was a kind of arrangement between Spain and some South American voters together with Qatar: you vote for me and we vote for you,” Blatter said.
Only 22 FIFA executive committee members voted for the World Cup hosts as two men had been suspended before the vote. Instead of Qatar winning 14-8, the Americans would have triumphed 12-10 had Platini not shifted support, according to Blatter.
Meanwhile, Swiss bank Credit Suisse said it was cooperating with the Swiss and American investigators after it “received inquiries from these authorities regarding its banking relationships with certain individuals and entities associated with FIFA.”