The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) will wait until after world governing body FIFA has completed its investigation into how Qatar won the 2022 World Cup rights before it makes any comment on whether their organization has been caught up in the scandal.
World soccer has been thrown into turmoil in the past week after a British newspaper reported that it had evidence that about US$5 million was paid to officials in return for votes for Qatar’s successful bid.
REPORTS DENIED
Qatar has strongly denied reports in Britain’s Sunday Times that bribes were paid to officials to bring the sporting world’s biggest global event to the tiny Gulf emirate.
The newspaper implicated a former Oceania official in its report, and the confederation has been silent on the matter since the story broke.
However, yesterday it said it would be unable to make any public statements until FIFA’s investigator Michael Garcia had presented his report to FIFA’s ethics committee.
STATEMENT
“Stories concerning the Oceania Football Confederation and the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 bidding process have appeared in the media this week,” the confederation said in a short statement.
“As the matter remains before the FIFA Ethics Committee, OFC does not wish to do anything that may undermine that process and is awaiting the outcome of the inquiry before making any further statement,” it added.
POST CUP REPORT
Garcia is expected to complete his investigation by Monday and subsequently report to the ethics committee about six weeks later.
This year’s World Cup, which is being overshadowed by the allegations of corruption, is to start on Thursday next week and run until July 13.
Garcia’s report is not set to be released until the conclusion of the tournament in Brazil.
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