The sum of US$2 million was sent to the 10-year-old
daughter of a Fifa official prior to Qatar being awarded the hosting of
the 2022 World Cup, according to Bild.
In an extract from the article released on Monday
night, the German daily claims to have got hold of the report of more
than 400 pages from American independent investigator, Michael Garcia’s
report into the alleged bribery and corruption during the bidding for
the hosting of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which has never been
properly published by world football’s governing body.
According
to Bild, in the report, Garcia reveals that “a former executive
committee member congratulated members of the Qatari federation and
thanked them by mail for a transfer of several hundred thousand euros”
just after Qatar was awarded the 2022 tournament.
“Two
million dollars from an unknown source arrived in the savings account
of the 10-year-old daughter of a Fifa member,” adds Bild.
The
newspaper claims “three executive members of Fifa with the right to
vote went to a party in Rio de Janeiro in a private jet belonging to the
Qatari federation before the vote to decide who would host the
competition”.
The Aspire Academy in Qatar, one
of the biggest sports academies in the world, was also “implicated in a
decisive manner in the manipulation of Fifa members who had the right to
vote,” the paper adds.
Qatar won the right to
host the 2022 World Cup in late 2010 and the result of the vote has been
the source of enormous controversy ever since.
Following
Garcia’s investigation, the adjudicatory chamber of Fifa’s ethics
committee noted that there had been suspicious behaviour during the
bidding process but not enough to call into question the decision to
give Qatar the 2022 finals or Russia the 2018 tournament.
In
2014, Garcia resigned as head of Fifa’s investigatory body in December
in protest at what he described as FIFA’s “incomplete and erroneous”
summary of his report.
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