 Qatar positioned itself as the bid which would broaden the horizons of the world's most popular game. Never before had a tournament been hosted in the Middle East. Here was FIFA's chance of making history, rather than treading on the more familiar ground being presented by the rival bids from the United States, Australia, South Korea and Japan. That was the argument Blatter made back in){kind=link}
Seventeen of the 22 FIFA ExCo members who handed the 2022 World Cup to Qatar have been banned or indicted over allegations of corruption and wrongdoing, but the tournament survived the storm
To describe Qatar hosting the World Cup as “controversial” would be a massive understatement.
Ever since the tiny Middle Eastern country won the rights to stage football’s biggest and most prestigious tournament on December 2, 2010 there have been protests, allegations, petitions, investigations and much more.
The man who announced their triumph, ex-FIFA president Sepp Blatter, has now admitted he regrets what happened. “The choice of Qatar was a mistake,” Blatter told Tages-Anzeiger. “At the time, we actually agreed in the Executive Committee that Russia should get the 2018 World Cup and the USA that of 2022. It would have been a gesture of peace if the two long-standing political opponents had hosted the World Cup one after the other.”
But after 4,371 days, which have seen countless corruption allegations, life bans, U-turns and thousands of construction projects, here we are, on the eve of the World Cup.