When Qatar was given the right to host the 2022 World Cup in 2010, Sepp Blatter, the former president of FIFA, told the Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger that “Qatar is a mistake” and that “the choice was wrong.”
Since it was first announced, the Qatar decision has been dogged by controversy, including claims of corruption and abuses of human rights.
During his 17-year stint as FIFA’s president, Blatter was also the subject of allegations of wrongdoing. A Swiss court exonerated him of fraud in June. The decision has been appealed by the prosecutors.
It is an insufficiently little nation. Blatter criticized Qatar, the first Middle Eastern nation to host the World Cup, saying “football and the World Cup are too large for it.”
He claimed that in response to complaints about the working conditions at building sites in Qatar related to the event, FIFA changed the criteria it used to choose host countries in 2012.
Since then, he continued, social factors and human rights have been taken into account.
Blatter stated that he will watch the competition from his Zurich home, where it will begin in less than two weeks.
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