Achi news desk-
Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has criticized the decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar as a “mistake.”
Blatter, 86, was FIFA president when the tournament was awarded to Qatar in 2010.
The Gulf state has come under fire for its position on same-sex relationships, human rights records, and the treatment of migrant workers.
Blatter said he was “correct” when he said the tournament “shouldn’t go” to Qatar in 2022.
Blatter told Swiss newspaper Tages Anzeiger that Qatar was “too small a country” to host the tournament and that “football and the World Cup are too big for it.”
The Qatar World Cup, the first in the tournament’s 92-year history to be held in the Middle East and the first in the Northern Hemisphere winter, runs from November 20 to December 18.
Fifa’s executive committee voted 14-8 in favor of Qatar hosting the tournament over the United States 12 years ago, while Russia won the 2018 event.
Blatter claims he voted for the United States and blames Uefa President Michel Platini at the time for swinging the vote in favor of Qatar.
“It was a bad decision, and I was responsible for it as president at the time,” he admitted.
“The World Cup was awarded to Qatar rather than the United States, thanks to Platini and his [UEFA] four votes per team. That’s the truth.”
Blatter also said that in 2012, Fifa changed the criteria used to select host countries in response to concerns raised about the treatment of migrant workers building World Cup stadiums in Qatar.
“Since then, social and human rights concerns have been taken into account,” he added.
Blatter served as Fifa president for 17 years before being forced to resign in 2015 over allegations that he arranged an illegal transfer of two million Swiss francs ($2.19 million; £1.6 million) to Platini, who was also forced to resign from ‘to a job at Fifa.
Fifa banned him from football for eight years, later reduced to six, because of Platini’s payment. He was then banned again until 2028 in March 2021 for “various breaches” of Fifa’s code of ethics.
Blatter and Platini were accused of fraud in November last year but were acquitted in a Swiss court case in July.
