NEW YORK/ZURICH, (Reuters) – The FBI’s investigation of alleged corruption at FIFA includes scrutiny of how soccer’s governing body awarded the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 competition to Qatar, a U.S. law enforcement official said.
The review would be part of a probe that goes beyond the allegations of bribery in a U.S. indictment of FIFA officials announced a week ago, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
U.S. authorities said at the time they were investigating a $150 million bribery case while Swiss prosecutors announced their own criminal inquiry into the 2018 and 2022 bids.
Russia and Qatar have denied wrongdoing in the conduct of their bids. In the case of Qatar, there was some surprise that the tournament was awarded to a small desert country with no real soccer tradition and where daytime summer temperatures can top 40 degrees Celsius (104F).
Qatar’s Foreign Minister Khaled al-Attiyah said there was no way Qatar would be stripped of its right to host the cup because it had had the best bid.
“It is very difficult for some to digest that an Arab Islamic country has this tournament, as if this right can’t be for an Arab state,” he told Reuters in an interview in Paris. “I believe it is because of prejudice and racism that we have this bashing campaign against Qatar.”
For its part, Russia dismissed concerns it might lose the right to host the cup. “Cooperation with FIFA is going on and, most importantly, Russia is continuing preparations for the 2018 World Cup,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said.
Among issues the FBI is examining is the stewardship of FIFA by its longtime president Sepp Blatter, who unexpectedly announced on Tuesday he was resigning shortly before it emerged that he too was under investigation by U.S. law enforcement.
U.S. authorities said last week that their investigation would continue.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said when she announced the indictments that the Department of Justice looked forward to continuing to work with other countries, while the case prosecutor Kelly Currie said the indictment was not the final chapter in their investigation.
