At noon Sunday, the first ball will be kicked off at the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar.
While there is no national team in the competition, recent events in TT dredges up the controversy as to how the smallest nation ever became host to one of the biggest sporting events.
Late last week when TT’s apex court, the Privy Council, in London, ruled that former FIFA vice president Jack Warner could face extradition to the United States for a barrage of racketeering and bribery charges.
The decision to chose Qatar made in 2010 as host nation for the 2022 games has been questioned and linked to allegations of bribery and corruption by those FIFA officials who voted for the Gulf nation.
Ex-FIFA head Sepp Blatter recently admitted choosing Qatar was a bad choice.
International media reports have linked Warner, who was barred by FIFA for life in 2015 after his grand jury indictment in the US, as being instrumental in the bid which allowed Qatar to get the nod to host this year’s tournament.
In 2020, documents released by the US Department of Justice’s in the indictment filed in the US District Court of New York’s Brooklyn Office set out the allegations in relation to the 2018 and 2022 voting bid for Russia and Qatar.
[caption id="attachment_986581" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Jack Warner at a press conference ahead of the FIFA U20 World Cup, in Cairo, Egypt in September 2009.-[/caption]
It said, “On or about December 2, 2010, in Zurich, Switzerland, the FIFA executive committee selected the host sites for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, in separate rounds of voting for each edition of the tournament, with each executive committee member casting an equally weighted vote. “Under the voting rules, if no bid received a majority of the votes cast, the bid receiving the fewest votes was eliminated and another vote was held.
“The process was repeated until one bid received an outright majority of the votes. Russia received a majority of votes in the second round of voting for the 2018 World Cup. Qatar received a majority of votes in the fourth round of voting for the 2022 World Cup.
The indictment went on to add, “Several executive committee members were offered or received bribes in connection with their votes. For example, the defendant Ricardo Teixeira (the former leader of football in Brazil), Nicolas Leoz (former president of the South American Football Federation) and co-conspirator# 1 were offered and received bribe payments in exchange for their votes in favour of Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup.”
Warner’s name was mentioned next, “In addition, the defendant Jack Warner was promised and received bribe payments totalling US$5 million and Rafael Salguero was promised a US$1 million bribe in exchange for their votes in favour of Russia to host the 2018 World Cup.”
The US Department of Justice documents explained the 2018 and 2022 World Cup vote schemes.
“In or about and between 2009 and 2010, bid committees working on behalf of various nations prepared presentations in support of bids to host eithe
