Outgoing Fifa Executive Committee member Theo Zwanziger says Qatar should be striped of the 2022 World Cup in order to rectify the mistake of awarding them the showpiece event.
The former president of the German FA (DFB) believes such measure should be carried out only if a report could provide evidence of specific breaches of FIfa ethics rules.
“The best solution would be not to play in Qatar and to rectify this wrong awarding,” he told German radio station Bayern 2. “But that can only happen if the report provides sufficient clues that the awarding broke FIFA ethics rules,” he emphasised. Fifa has been hit with several corruption allegations in recent years, including misconduct claims in the bidding process for the 2018 World Cup awarded to Russia and 2022 tournament billed for Qatar.
Former US attorney Michael Garcia who investigated the claims and drafted a report, resigned in protest in December expressing disappointment about the “erroneous” representation of his investigation findings.
A redacted version of Garcia’s 430-page report will be published at an undisclosed date.
“Qatar was not suitable to host such a World Cup for a number of reasons,” Zwanziger said.
Summer temperatures in the Gulf state could exceed 40C and Fifa is expected to move the tournament to winter.
Qatar has also been criticised over their treatment of migrant workers and protection of their human rights as they build state of the art football stadia.
“One has to tell candidates (for World Cups) that sports, football, the clubs and FIFA, they all represent values that we expect to be observed,” said Zwanziger, who steps down from FIFA in May.
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