International Football
WORLD CUP VOTING SCANDAL REIGNITED AS BOOK CLAIMS FIFA MADE SECRET $100M DEAL WITH QATARI TV COMPANY
The controversy over the award of hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup has again come up. Daily Mail of the United Kingdom reports that more than seven years after the votes, there are revelations that Qatar’s state TV company agreed a $100million payment to FIFA if they got the 2022 finals.
According to the newspaper, the claims are made in a new book by a whistleblower from inside Australia’s failed 2022 bid, Bonita Mersiades, who has spent years investigating the saga and conducted a recent confessional interview with former FIFA president Sepp Blatter about the process.
Among other new revelations, Blatter claims in the book that:
- German legend Franz Beckenbauer, who publicly supported Australia’s bid, would not have done so unless he was paid — in breach of the rules;
- Blatter knew before the vote for 2022 was even conducted that Qatar would win and favourites USA would lose out;
- He was so certain of it that he personally called American president Barack Obama in the days before the vote to tell him the US would lose.
Blatter says he knew Qatar would win because Michel Platini told him that he and multiple others on the 22-man voting ExCo panel were going to back the tiny state on the Arabian Peninsula. Blatter was subsequently dismayed with Qatar’s win and wanted them stripped of the tournament but says he did a deal — twice — to stop that happening, in exchange for Qatar’s Emir guarantee that Blatter would not face a 2011 FIFA presidential challenge from Qatar’s ExCo member Mohamed bin Hammam.
Blatter also describes the circumstances of the deals, one made in Doha in late 2010 and one in his FIFA office in Zurich in 2011.
The book says that in the months before the vote in December 2010 — with FIFA executives privately worried that a Qatar win would leave a financial shortfall for coffers in 2022 — broadcaster Al Jazeera (now beIN Sports) agreed the secret deal to pay $100m if Qatar won the vote, which subsequently happened. When asked about the payment by The Mail on Sunday this week, the broadcaster did not dispute it but characterised the bonus as ‘production contributions’ that are ‘standard market practice and are often imposed upon broadcasters by sports federations and sports rights holders’.
Beckenbauer, 72, is arguably Germany’s foremost footballing hero having won the World Cup for his country as a player and captain (1974), manager (1990) and tournament bid leader (2006).
In the book, Blatter is reported as claiming Beckenbauer would have received money for working for Australia’s bid team, a huge conflict of interest and forbidden by bidding rules given that he was on the 22-man ExCo voting committee. Beckenbauer was banned by FIFA for 90 days in 2014 for failing to co-operate with lawyer Michael Garcia’s inquiry into the 2018-2022 process, and when he did later co-operate, he gave evidence that Garcia concluded was unreliable and contradicted other evidence.
Separately, Beckenbauer has been subject to an ongoing investigation around alleged bidding irregularities around the 2006 World Cup.
Mersiades explains how Australia’s three ‘international bid consultants’ were paid around £9m out of a public purse budget of around £30m for services that remain sketchy. One of those consultants was Beckenbauer’s friend and business partner, Fedor Radmann, who also declined to cooperate with Garcia. Radmann earned about £2m from Australia.
Blatter told Mersiades: ‘No doubt Radmann had some scheme going. I know he [Radmann] got a lot of money, and Franz wouldn’t do what he did for Australia for nothing.’
Blatter claims that in the end, Australia’s sole vote before they crashed out actually came from him, not Beckenbauer, who has always declined to say who he voted for. Beckenbauer has not responded to questions about the issue submitted to him via his representatives.
Garcia said in his report: ‘Devices employed by the bid team and its consultants were seemingly aimed at hiding ties with Mr Radmann, while taking advantage of his influence over Mr Beckenbauer to further the bid strategy.’
The deal over the $100m bonus from Al Jazeera was agreed, the book says, with the involvement and knowledge of Jérôme Valcke, secretary general of FIFA at the time but later banned for nine years from football for corruption.
The book says: ‘Valcke’s concerns about revenue growth in relation to Qatar were assuaged when negotiations commenced in October 2010 for a bonus payment of US $100m to FIFA from Al Jazeera if Qatar won 2022. There was no way he could turn it down. According to former FIFA staff, Valcke’s share was generally five per cent for negotiating the deal.’
Mersiades asked Blatter about this bonus and he says: ‘Sponsors and broadcasters pay bonuses all the time. That is not unusual.’
When pushed to clarify that a $100m bonus was ‘normal’, Blatter shrugged.
A spokesman for beIN said: ‘There is clearly a significant uplift in interest and additional revenues to a broadcaster and significant additional local production costs to a rights holder when a major sports event is awarded in a broadcaster’s domestic market. The relevant media agreements were stand alone from any bid, and were in no way intended to influence the outcome of the vote.’
The book will be launched at a reception at the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday, hosted by football governance reform advocates including MP Damian Collins.
Representatives from four national players’ unions on Thursday launched a new global organisation in Madrid, which they say will strengthen footballers’ rights and improve dialogue with governing bodies.
Opening a new front in the battle over who speaks for players, the International Footballers’ Association (AIF) was unveiled, with David Aganzo, president of Spain’s Association of Footballers (AFE) and a former head of the global union FIFPRO, appointed to lead the organisation.
Players’ unions from Brazil, Mexico and Switzerland were also represented.
The initiative drew a swift rebuke from FIFPRO, which said in a statement that Aganzo was acting out of self-interest and aligning himself with organisations linked to football governing bodies, as well as groups expelled from FIFPRO over alleged mismanagement.
Aganzo rejected the criticism, saying he “will not seek confrontation with FIFPRO”.
The launch comes amid strained relations between players’ unions and football authorities, particularly over the expanding international match calendar.
Relations between FIFA and FIFPRO deteriorated in 2024 after the union lodged a complaint with the European Commission, arguing that the global governing body was abusing its dominant position by adding competitions without sufficient consultation.
Aganzo denied suggestions that the new initiative was backed by FIFA president Gianni Infantino, but said “direct dialogue with FIFA” was essential.
AFE’s Extraordinary General Assembly approved the initiative in February with 99.8% of votes cast in favour of spearheading the creation of the AIF.
The same assembly also backed AFE’s withdrawal from FIFPRO, citing what it described as a “complete lack of transparency, as well as its total lack of dialogue with international bodies.”
“We represent over 30,000 footballers, and we come here with a new model aimed at safeguarding players’ rights and facilitating direct communication with all international bodies,” Aganzo told reporters.
“We are in contact with 15 to 20 unions already who were very aware of this moment and waiting for this announcement to make their move and join our initiative.”
He declined to identify any unions beyond those present.
Asked about a report that a senior envoy to U.S. President Donald Trump had urged FIFA to replace Iran with Italy at the upcoming World Cup, Aganzo urged caution.
“These are more political issues; on April 30th, I’ll be speaking to Gianni (Infantino) at the FIFA Congress, and we will discuss those things,” Aganzo said.
“People who want to go to the World Cup have to earn their place on sporting merit.”
-Reuters
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A new trial over the death of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona will begin on Tuesday, with seven members of his medical team charged with negligent homicide nearly a year after a previous case collapsed in a mistrial.
An enduring presence in Argentina – from towering murals to tattoos, opens new tab – Maradona died on November 25, 2020, at 60, after a heart attack while he was recuperating from brain surgery to remove a blood clot.
A court in San Isidro, near Buenos Aires, will hear testimony from just under 100 witnesses as it tries Maradona’s medical team over alleged negligence in the death of the 1986 World Cup champion.
His medical team has denied wrongdoing. The defendants are psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, psychologist Carlos Angel Diaz, physician Nancy Edith Forlini, nurse Ricardo Almiron, head nurse Mariano Ariel Perroni, and physician Pedro Pablo Di Spagna. An eighth defendant, nurse Dahiana Madrid, will be tried in a separate jury trial, with no date yet set.
Two months into the first trial, which started last March, a mistrial was declared when one of three judges, Julieta Makintach, resigned after video surfaced showing her being interviewed by a camera crew in the corridors of the courthouse and in her office as part of a documentary, in breach of judicial rules.
The retrial will require both prosecutors and defense lawyers to reassess their strategies after the first trial aired photographs, videos, audio recordings and forensic evidence. Many witnesses, including Maradona’s children and his former wife, Claudia Villafane, have already testified.
Prosecutors argued in the initial trial that medical professionals broke treatment protocols and that the home where Maradona was recovering from surgery amounted to a “theatre of horror,” where necessary care was not provided.
The defense countered that his death was inevitable given his longstanding health problems. Maradona struggled for decades with cocaine and alcohol addiction.
The negligence charges emerged in 2021 after prosecutors appointed a medical board to investigate Maradona’s death. The panel concluded his medical team acted in an “inappropriate, deficient and reckless” manner.
-Reuters
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Aliou Cisse has been named coach of the Angola national team, the country’s football federation (FAF) announced on Thursday, 24 hours after the Senegalese left his post in Libya.
The 50-year-old coach, who led Senegal to their maiden Africa Cup of Nations title in 2022, ended his short stint with the Libyan national team on Wednesday, after taking charge in March 2025.
“Welcome, Aliou Cisse, head coach of the Angola national team,” the FAF said on Facebook. Angola, which failed to reach this year’s World Cup, will start their 2027 AFCON qualifying campaign in September.
-Reuters
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