GIVE US OUR MONEY BACK!
As Blatter admits World Cup stitch-up, England demand...
THE FA are to examine their legal position after suspended FIFA president Sepp Blatter sensationally claimed the venues for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were fixed before voting.
The 79- year- old made his extraordinary allegation during a long interview with Russian news service TASS. He said the 2018 World Cup was lined up for Russia and the 2022 tournament was meant to go to the USA — until UEFA’s Michel Platini derailed the plan by taking votes to Qatar.
It now appears the FA spent £21million, including £2.5m from the public purse, on a 2018 bid that was doomed from the start.
On top of that, Prince William and Prime Minister David Cameron were put in the embarrassing position of lobbying for last-minute support in Zurich five years ago, only for England’s bid to attract just two votes.
The FA said they would launch a full inquiry following Blatter’s comments yesterday.
Chairman Greg Dyke, asked by a Culture, Media and Sport select committee if he would sue FIFA, replied: ‘If this turns out to be a rigged bid, we shall recover our money. It would not be unreasonable to ask for our money back. It would be very nice to get taxpayers’ money back.
‘We will ask questions about what Blatter has said. He may
From Back Page just say he was misrepresented or mistranslated. But we will go back and ask FIFA and we will talk to our lawyers. It’s uncharted territory.’ Dyke was facing MPs to explain why the FA gave premature support to suspended UEFA president Platini in his bid to succeed Blatter as FIFA boss. Then came Blatter’s bombshell. The Swiss said: ‘In 2010 we had a discussion about the World Cup and then we went to a double decision. For the World Cups, it was agreed we go to Russia because it’s never been in Eastern Europe and for 2022 we go back to America. And so we will have the World Cup in the two biggest political powers. ‘And everything was good until French President Nicolas Sarkozy came to a meeting with the Crown Prince of Qatar, who is now the ruler of Qatar. And at a lunch afterwards with Mr Platini, Sarkozy said it would be good to go to Qatar. This changed the pattern.’ Blatter, who seems hellbent on bringing down Platini, added: ‘There was the election by secret ballot. Four votes from Europe went away from the USA. If the USA was given the World Cup we would only speak about the wonderful World Cup in Russia and we would not speak about problems at FIFA.’ Blatter did not expand on who had agreed to what look like rigged World Cup votes but accused England and the USA of plunging FIFA into crisis because they are ‘bad losers’. He said: ‘In Great Britain, they have made this beautiful game, they have introduced fair play. But there was only one (outside) vote going for England.’ Dyke told MPs: ‘There’s nothing Mr Blatter says that surprises me much. If he is saying, “We wanted Russia”, and it looks like he wanted that fixed before the vote, it’s suggesting it was all fixed.’ Blatter’s PR chief Klaus Stohlker was in damage-limitation mode last night, insisting of the World Cup votes: ‘It was not an agreement, this was (Blatter’s) proposal and of course it went to the vote at the ExCo committee.’ Dyke faced a difficult situation of his own yesterday as he tried to explain why the FA had hastily come out in support of Platini. ‘We thought backing the UEFA president would lead to a better relationship with UEFA,’ he said. ‘But we were put in a difficult position by the events of recent weeks of which we knew nothing.’ The FA withdrew their support for Platini as the next FIFA president on October 16 after it emerged the Frenchman had received a murky £1.35million consultancy payment from Blatter nine years after his employment had finished. Dyke also pointed the finger at FIFA auditors KPMG, saying: ‘Quite big sums of money do not appear to have been accounted for. How do you account for suddenly giving the Irish €5m for Thierry Henry’s handball (which cost them a place at the 2010 World Cup)? ‘And if Mr Blatter paid Mr Platini £1.5m nine years later, how is that accounted for? The first thing I would have done is send in a bunch of forensic accountants to see where the money came from and where it went.’ Dyke no longer expects Platini to stand for the FIFA presidency and said the FA would delay announcing which of the seven candidates they will back.