QATAR WORLD CUP BID LINKED TO ‘SUSPICIOUS’ $22M PAYMENT
Claims that sum was paid into Brazilian football chief’s account a month before country was named as host
Qatar has been hit with accusations of corruption over its 2022 World Cup of football, with US and Brazilian prosecutors investigating a transfer of US$22 million (Dh80.8m) by the Gulf nation.
The French website Mediapart reported that the payment had been made by Ghanim bin Saad Al Saad and Sons, the Qatari group, to the bank account of the Brazilian Football Confederation’s former chairman, Ricardo Teixeira, in January 2011, a month after Qatar was awarded the tournament.
The discovery was made by the Brazilian justice ministry and the FBI, who were investigating an account Mr Teixeira opened at Banque Pasche Monaco, a Swiss bank controlled by Credit Mutuel.
The website said the group “led by businessman Ghanim bin Saad Al Saad is at the heart of suspicions of corruption”.
Mr Teixeira, 70, resigned from the federation in 2012, having been dogged by allegations of money laundering and fraud throughout his 23-year tenure.
He was once a son-in-law of former Fifa president Joao Havelange and one of the 22 members of the executive committee of world football’s governing body that chose Qatar.
Mr Teixeira was reported to be the middleman and in early 2013 had been planning to make deposits to fellow Fifa officials Jack Warner, Nicolas Leoz and Mohamed bin Hammam, who voted for the tournament to be held in Qatar.
Mr Warner was then president of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football; Mr bin Hammam was president of the Asian Football Confederation; and Mr Leoz was president of the South American Football Confederation.
Mr Al Saad has been investigated by prosecutors over deals he oversaw in France, one of the key backers of the Qatari bid.
In August this year, The Daily
Telegraph claimed that investigators were trying to trace a payment of €182m (Dh797.7m) made during a deal with Mr Al Saad, which they suspected was being used to pay off World Cup officials.
The allegation that Mr Teixeira handled Qatari payments in exchange for World Cup votes is the latest scandal to engulf Doha in its attempt to host the world’s most prestigious football tournament.
Three former South American football officials are on trial accused of being involved in a £120m (Dh588m) bribery scheme, related to broadcasting and hosting rights.
During a dramatic day at a court in New York this month, a witness claimed that Julio Grondona, former president of the Argentine Football Association, who died in 2014, had demanded $1m to secure his backing for Qatar’s World Cup bid.
Out of 25 Fifa executives involved in backing Qatar 2022 and Russia’s 2018 World Cup campaign, which has also been mired in controversy, 13 have been ousted or deemed “demonstrably corrupt”, The
Guardian reported.
The scandal and concerns over welfare of workers and their rights has led to calls for Qatar to lose the right to host the World Cup, all made worse by the tournament being moved from June to November to avoid the summer heat and the continuing boycott by four Arab countries over Doha’s support for extremism.
In 2015, Domenico Scala, the head of Fifa’s audit and compliance committee, said that if evidence surfaced that Qatar had won the competition because of “bought votes, then the awards could be cancelled”.
A report obtained last month by the BBC revealed that private discussions by western diplomats had questioned whether the tournament, which would be the first World Cup in the Middle East, would take place at all.
The report, by management company Cornerstone Global, found the crisis that led to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain cutting ties with Qatar was putting the tournament at risk of being moved to another nation.
The allegation that Mr Teixeira handled Qatari payments in exchange for World Cup votes is the latest scandal for Doha