FIFA clears Qatar to host 2022 World Cup

The World Cups of 2018 and 2022 are set go ahead in Russia and Qatar as planned, after FIFA’s ethics committee said it could find no grounds for reopening the controversial bidding process.

In a long-awaited report, the committee said that “the various incidents which might have occurred are not suited to compromise the integrity of the FIFA World Cup 2018/2022 bidding process as a whole”.

The report also criticised England’s bid for the 2018 tournament for bowing to “inappropriate requests “from former CONCACAF president Jack Warner, a FIFA powerbroker at the time” in what it said was “an apparent violation of bidding rules”.

It said that in Australia’s bid for 2022 “there are certain indications of potentially problematic conduct of specific individuals in the light of relevant FIFA Ethics rules.

“The occurrences at issue were… only of very limited scope,” it added.

“In particular, the effects of these occurrences on the bidding process as a whole were far from reaching any threshold that would require returning to the bidding process, let alone reopening it — a decision which anyway would not fall under the FIFA Ethics Committee’s competence.

“The assessment of the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cups bidding process is therefore closed for the FIFA Ethics Committee.”

FIFA and Qatar World Cup organisers have been fending off allegations of corruption ever since the Gulf state was awarded the 2022 tournament. This report should extinguish all doubt.

Meanwhile, Qatar has not received an official request to host the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, but it is “ready” to help in organising it, said the head of the Gulf country’s Football Association.

Qatar was not “officially asked to host” the continental tournament after Morocco was stripped of the right to stage the event, said Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Bin Ahmad Al Thani in a statement.

“If officially asked, Qatar is ready to offer any help in hosting the African Cup due to its strong relation with Issa Hayatou, president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF),” he added.

Al Thani recalled that his country organised the 1995 World Youth Championship after it was moved from Nigeria.

Morocco called for the postponement of the AFCON due to the deadly Ebola pandemic, but CAF was not ready to tamper with the January date and had to withdraw the hosting right from them with a heavy fine likely to follow.

CAF are due to announce the next hosts “in two or three days”, Hayatou said.