Sepp Blatter planned for the 2018-22 World Cups to be a joint programme between Russia and USA, in an idea he hoped would deliver him a Nobel Peace Prize. A child of the Cold War, the former Fifa president wanted to be the first to bring the two superpowers together in a common project. The idea wasn’t just that there would be a symbolic handover but also that the Local Organising Committees would work together as one.
The details come in a new book by this writer, States of Play, and take on a new resonance given recent political developments as well as the invasion of Ukraine. Blatter’s plan was spoiled by the Fifa ExCo's decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar in the immensely controversial joint process in December 2010. The Swiss official angrily blamed much of this on his one-time protege, then Uefa president Michel Platini, who switched his vote to the Gulf state.
That move opened a rift between the two men at the top of the game, only for the sport’s entire leadership to come apart amid the US state investigations that eventually led to overhaul at both Fifa and Uefa in 2015 and departure of both from their presidential positions. The acrimony was so bad that Blatter was even said to be more accepting of his fate, since he was satisfied with his time at the top, and was content that Platini could not achieve his goal of succeeding him as Fifa president.
Blatter was infamously ashen-faced on reading out Qatar’s name on that fateful day in 2010, although people within the global body had already feared that the vote would go that way.
The US justice department eventually released an indictment stating there had been “bribe payments in exchange” for votes, although the book details how those World Cups were really won at state level, with trade agreements and high politics.
There was also the historic irony of the story showing how the entire Blatter system eventually worked against him. The former Fifa president had grand visions of the bid showing how football could heal the planet, with both USA and Russia working together just 20 years after the end of the Cold War. It is well known that Blatter’s ambition was to win a Nobel Peace Prize, and this was a potential route.
The plans were unravelling by the time of an infamous lunch at Elysee Palace in Paris, where then French president Nicolas Sarkozy requested Platini come to meet with a group that consisted of: then Qatari crown prince and current emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani; then influential prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani; Sebastien Bazin of Colony Capital, the American fund that owned 98 per cent of Paris Saint-Germain, who Sarkozy supported.
According to the most common version of events, Sarkozy told Platini “it would be a good thing” if he switched his vote for the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. Platini has always denied any external influence on his eventual choice, and insisted he came to the decision himself. He later phoned Blatter to say they had “a problem” and that he couldn’t “support” him. The Swiss official was furious.
Ten days after that meeting, Qatar won the vote to host the 2022 World Cup. Seven months later, Qatar Sports Investments purchased a majority stake in PSG. A year after that, beIN SPORTS was launched in France by Qatar’s Al Jazeera Media Network. Everyone at the meeting denies any connection between these events, which a France Football investigation naturally termed ‘Qatargate’.
By 2022, at a summit in Kazakhstan just a month before that World Cup, Qatar were publicly thanking Vladimir Putin for Russia’s logistical help in preparing for the tournament. This was of course as the Russian national team was excluded from that same tournament because of the war in Ukraine.
It was Blatter’s dream made into a nightmare.
States of Play by Miguel Delaney publishes with Seven Dials on 7 November, the book can be ordered here.
