SPECIAL REPORT: How Qatar bought the 2022 World Cup

Phaedra Almajid recalls the day in early 2010 when three members of FIFA’s executive committee entered a hotel room in Luanda, Angola, to meet the team behind the Qatar World Cup bid. As well as speaking to Almajid, former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and the chair of the Qatar bid team Hassan Al Thawadi — who denies any wrongdoing — the film-makers secured interviews with an FBI agent who helped to bring football’s ruling body to their knees and a British intelligence officer employed as a spy by England’s 2018 World Cup bid team. The gulf state saw off stern competition to win the hosting rights for the 2022 tournament Now, a new documentary casts a light on the criminal lengths undertaken to win the bid Steele’s sources told him Qatar would invest billions in a deal to develop oil fields on Russia’s Yamal Peninsula, and the two nations would do whatever necessary to gain support for each other’s bids to stage the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. ‘But the Qataris have used their petrodollar millions to gain power and influence in the game’s international circles.’ The former ExCo member was found to have bribed fellow voters for their support of Qatar Qatar entered into a pact with Russia to help them secure the 2018 World Cup Almajid was quoted anonymously: ‘I don’t think Qatar will win 2022. Asked if he believed that Qatar had paid bribes, Blatter says: ‘I don’t know if they paid, because I have not seen, but in football, to get the World Cup, everything is possible.’ Blatter has agreed to take part in the documentary and maintains his innocence in the saga Blatter says Platini called him a week before the December 2010 vote to tell him that at least four UEFA ExCo members including himself would be voting for Qatar despite knowing Blatter wanted the USA to host that tournament.