The Qatari team that made the controversial winning bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup offered large sums of money to senior African soccer figures for their respective federations, former FIFA communications director Phaedra Almajid has claimed.
Almajid told weekly magazine France Football that she had been present when the offers were made, but did not witness money changing hands.
Almajid gave evidence under condition of anonymity to the FIFA inquiry into the corruption allegations surrounding the 2018 bid won by Russia and the 2022 race led by former US federal prosecutor Michael Garcia. However, her identity was controversially revealed by FIFA’s ethics chief Hans-Joachim Eckert.
The whistle-blower told the magazine that one meeting took place in the suite of a hotel in the Angolan capital of Luanda in January 2010 during the African Football Confederation congress ahead of the Africa Cup of Nations.
She recounted that somebody in the room said “how delighted they [the Qataris] were that a high-ranking African football director was present in the room and they wished to benefit his federation to the tune of a million {US] dollars.”
“This man [the director] replied without looking at the Qatari: ‘Ah, a million dollars... Why not a million-and-a-half [US] dollars,’” said Almajid, who lost her job in 2010.
“And the Qatari, he said he hoped he [the director] could count on his support. The fellow assured him that was the case, and that was that,” she added.
She said the same thing occurred with two other high-ranking African soccer personalities, but she did not identify them.
Almajid was scathing about Eckert identifying her in his summary of Garcia’s report, in which he ruled out a revote for either the 2018 or 2022 finals.
“Eckert and FIFA were not loyal towards me,” she told France Football. “[Eckert] threw me to the lions in identifying me in the report.”
Almajid was offered protection by the FBI after threats were made to her and her children,
Controversy has stalked the 2022 World Cup since Qatar’s bid. Even the presentation of Garcia’s report was polemic after the American said FIFA had misrepresented his findings.
Eckert’s summary of Garcia’s investigation cleared Russia and Qatar, but Garcia said he would appeal the findings’ “numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions” in his report.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but