On December 2, 2010, Qatar was officially announced by the then-President of FIFA Sepp Blatter. Qatar ultimately beat the US in a runoff vote to secure the 2022 World Cup, but how did they make it that far to begin with?

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Qatar's bid emphasized the expansion of the game; Qatar would be the first Middle Eastern country to host the event and would result in major buy-in from that region of the world. Middle Eastern soccer teams are rarely featured in major global competitions, so bringing the highest level of international soccer directly to their doorstep could be a prime opportunity to grow the game and serve as a point of unity [1]. Further, Qatar benefitted from their vast pool of wealth; the Qatari bid convinced the voting panel that they had the financial resources to undertake the massive amounts of infrastructure development, including seven new stadiums, to accommodate the sheer size of the tournament. This likely would have been a lot more difficult for other smaller nations, but Qatar is known for its oil money.  

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Qatar's victory is riddled with accusations of multiple occurrences of corruption and bribery that Qatar would reasonably have the resources to pull off.

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The Voting Process

 

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                                                      Scenes from Qatar being officially awarded the 2022 World Cup Bid [P3]

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For context, a very general summary of the voting process for the 2022 World Cup is as follows (the 2018 World Cup host was selected at the same time, but we will not be detailing the specifics of those bids).

 

There were five serious contenders who wanted the honor of hosting the 2022 World Cup: Australia, Japan, South Korea, the US, and Qatar.

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Each bidder had to officially register their bid, form a Bid Committee to construct and present their bid, and allow FIFA to inspect their facilities, among other requirements.

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After hearing all five bids, the members of the FIFA Executive Committee voted for who they thought should host the 2022 World Cup**. There were 24 members of the Executive Committee, but only 22 were eligible to vote (the Secretary General cannot vote and two other members were suspended for corruption). Voting members included FIFA President Sepp Blatter, Senior Vice President Julio Grondona, 6 other VPs, and the general Committee members. As such, 12 votes were needed to award a country the right to host the 2022 tournament. Voting occurs behind closed doors after the final bid presentations, and the winner is announced later in the night. Qatar won by receiving 14 votes [9].

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[4]

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** this process is now different

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Allegations of Corruption

 

Qatar's victory is riddled with accusations of multiple occurrences of corruption and bribery that Qatar would reasonably have the resources to pull off. For some of these, it can be argued that Qatar operated within the unwritten boundaries and were merely strategical successes while others are blatantly corrupt. Qatar fired back against any accusations of corruption by redirecting the conversation and accusing critics of wanting to find any reason to move the World Cup from Qatar and of refusing to give Qatar any sort of respect. While most of these are unconfirmed (not necessarily unproven), the sheer volume of allegations is concerning in and of itself. It is also important to note that this is not an exhaustive list but includes some of the most relevant allegations.

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Funding the annual CAF meeting: In 2010, the Confederation of African Football (CAF), the governing body of soccer in Africa, held their annual meeting months before the official bids for the 2022 World Cup were presented. CAF were struggling to acquire the funding needed to hold their meeting, so Qatar stepped in and offered to sponsor the meeting. In return, Qatar presented their World Cup bid to the delegates present, some of whom had voting power on FIFA's Executive Committee and would therefore have a say in who would host the World Cup. [7]

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Mohamed bin Hamman: Qatari Mohamed bin Hammam is a former president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). In 2010, he intended to run for FIFA President against then-President Sepp Blatter. In August 2010, five months before Qatar was awarded the World Cup, he randomly pulled out and said he would not run against Blatter. This seemingly created a temporary alliance, in which it can be speculated that Blatter, as FIFA President, may have put in a good word about Qatar hosting as a repayment for bin Hamman not running against him. [7]

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... Mohamed bin Hammam would try to run against Blatter in 2011 until he was accused of bribing Caribbean officials. How ironic. 

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                                                              Sepp Blatter (left) and Mohamed bin Hammam (right) [P4]

                                       

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Bribery: In the recent Netflix docuseries "FIFA Uncovered," Phaedra Almajid, a former member of the Qatari World Cup bid team, claims she witnessed bribes being offered to 3 African voting FIFA members. Separately, in 2019, leaked documents revealed that Qatar secretly offered money to FIFA if they were to be awarded the World Cup just 3 weeks before the decision came out. Al-Jazeera, the major state-run news organization of Qatar, made a huge television broadcasting rights offer of $400 million, including a clause that $100 million would be paid to FIFA if Qatar received the right to host the tournament [3]. 3 years later, Qatar offered an additional $480 million dollars to FIFA for unspecified reasons. A different US investigation claimed that three South American FIFA Executive Committee members were paid by Qatar in exchange for their vote [6].

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Trading Votes: For important context, the hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were decided at the same time in 2010. In 2011, FIFA officially confirmed that Qatar and Portugal/Spain (who presented a joint-bid for the 2018 World Cup) had colluded to trade their votes in attempt for each of them to get their respective World Cup bid. This came with a lot of controversy not just with Qatar, but also with FIFA who had insisted that previous investigations into the matter had not uncovered evidence of collusion. The collusion supposedly included seven of the votes from the FIFA Executive Committee Members (12 are needed to win the right to the World Cup), but not much else has been revealed. This collusion was revealed by then-President Sepp Blatter, and while some appreciated the transparency, others viewed it merely as an attempt by Blatter to weaken the campaign of Mohamed bin Hammam, who was going to try to run against Blatter to become FIFA President.  [2]

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