Suspended FIFA President Sepp Blatter has repeated claims that government interference from then French president Nicolas Sarkozy resulted in Qatar rather than the United States being awarded the right to host the 2022 World Cup. Speaking to Friday's edition of Britain's Financial Times, Blatter repeated the claims he made Wednesday to Russian news agency TASS that FIFA's executive committee had originally agreed to award the 2018 tournament to Russia and the next World Cup to the United States. Blatter told the FT that there had been a "gentleman's agreement" that the two World Cups in question would go to the "two superpowers." "It was behind the scenes. It was diplomatically arranged to go there," said Blatter, who has found himself at the center of a FIFA corruption storm ever since being re-elected to a fifth term in May. However, as he stated Wednesday, Blatter, who is set to stand down after February's FIFA presidential election, said Sarkozy's influence moved the goalposts. "Just one week before the election I got a telephone call from Platini and he said, ‘I am no longer in your picture because I have been told by the head of state that we should consider ... the situation of France'. And he told me that this will affect more than one vote because he had a group of voters." Platini, the suspended UEFA chief, admitted to voting for Qatar at the election in December 2010 when the World Cups were awarded to Russia and Qatar, but denied doing so on the orders of Sarkozy, who was French president from 2007-2012, despite the latter having not long beforehand invited him to dinner with the future Qatari emir, Tamim Biin Hamad Al-Thani, then the prince of Qatar. "If you see my face when I opened it (the envelope containing the winning bid), I was not the happiest man to say it is Qatar," he said. "Definitely not." Clarifying remarks made Wednesday, Blatter's spokesman Klaus Stoehlker had told Reuters that the president meant he had proposed such an allocation of the two tournaments but that it was not agreed beforehand because FIFA's executive committee had to vote on it. Moscow denied Friday that it had colluded to win the right to host the 2018 World Cup. "There was no collusion between Russia and anyone," Russian news agencies quoted Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko as saying. "It is absolutely not true." Speaking to French 24-hour news channel BFMTV Thursday, Sarkozy denied using his influence to affect the World Cup vote. "There you go, once again someone who attributes great power to me," said Sarkozy from Moscow where he was meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "That was not my aim, nor was it to manage PSG, nor to attribute the World Cup to anyone in particular," he added ironically. "But you thank him (Blatter) nonetheless from me. It was doubtless a reference that points to his very great friendship with Michel Platini." Blatter told TASS Wednesday that after the Franco-Qatari summit, "four European votes deserted the United States and the result was 14-8 (to Qatar)." Otherwise, according to Blatter, the United States would have won the right to host the World Cup by 12 votes to 10 following the supposedly secret ballot in 2010. Earlier this month, both Blatter and Platini, who is a FIFA vice president as well as running European football, were suspended by FIFA's independent ethics committee for 90 days as part of a wide-ranging investigation into corruption at the heart of world football's governing body. Blatter also rejected complaints made by the sport's biggest sponsors over the scandal, saying they were politically motivated and made at the behest of the United States. Banking giant Credit Suisse, meanwhile, said Friday it was under investigation by Swiss and US authorities over banking links with FIFA officials accused of bribery and corruption. — Agencies
