Proving yet another allegation levelled against Qatar as false, Real Madrid has issued an official statement denying any involvement of its President Florentino Perez (pictured) in Doha’s successful bid to host the FIFA World Cup in 2022.
The professional football club based in Madrid, released the statement after France Football, a French bi-weekly magazine, alleged that Perez had a role in Qatar getting the chance to host football’s most prestigious event.
Doha has come under fire ever since it won the bid to host the 2022 edition of the soccer tournament. Qatar has refuted all allegations of any wrongdoing and maintained that it had won the bid purely on merit.
France Football, one of the most reputable sports publications in Europe, alleged that the club (Real Madrid) and its president were involved in secret meetings that would see Qatar get the World Cup. Real, the world's richest football club in terms of revenue, has also threatened legal action against the France Football's “false” report.
The statement read: “It is absolutely false that there was a meeting in October 2009, or on any other date, with the delegation named in the report, nor with any other delegation, nor with the president of the Federación Española de Fútbol, nor with anybody in relation to Qatar's World Cup candidacy. Real Madrid and their president, Florentino Pérez, will take the legal action they consider appropriate against France Football and against the authors of the report.”
Earlier reports said England and Australia, the two countries from the Western world who have been on the forefront of allegations of corruption in Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid, have themselves tried to buy the support of Fifa vice-president Jack Warner, according to a report in Trinidad Express.
The Trinidad-based newspaper said it has seen communications between the former powerful FIFA vice-president and officials from the bidding teams of the two countries, suggesting they might have acted inappropriately by contravening the same bidding procedures they allege Qatar flouted.
Trinidad Express newspaper reported on Sunday that the former high-flying FIFA executive and member of parliament for Chaguanas West, Warner, accepted gifts from nations bidding to secure World Cup hosting rights in the run-up to the 2010 vote in violation of the Integrity in Public Life Act (IPLA) and Fifa’s own bid rules.
“In the run-up to FIFA’s controversial bid to select host nations for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, England sought to secure Warner’s support by footing the bill for the Warner-arranged Caribbean Football Union (CFU) dinner at the Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence, Macoya, and provide financial and technical support for other Warner-identified development projects in Trinidad.
However, British football association,The FA, has denied reports that "The FA operated outside of any rules or made any financial payments".
In the case of the Australians, a $462,000 donation for a Trinidad stadium upgrade ended up in Warner’s pockets, the paper said. Australia also provided a $2.5mn grant to Warner’s buddy and president of the Jamaican Football Federation, Captain Horace Burrell, late in the bidding process in October 2010. "Australia also flew Trinidad and Tobago’s Under-20 team to a training camp in Cyprus at a cost of about $250,000."
The value of Russia’s largesse was reported to be over $100,000 -- hardly the incidental value described in the FIFA-issued bid rules. The former Soviet power picked up a tab said to be over $100,000 for a four-day visit to Russia for Warner, his wife Maureen and two aides, according to documents seen by Trinidad Express newspaper.
