Headlines
Qatar to be stripped of 2022 World Cup: FIFA whistleblower
London, June 7
Qatar are likely be stripped of
the 2022 World Cup, according to a FIFA whistleblower who was a former
senior figure in the country's bid team.
Phaedra Almajid, who
turned whistleblower to expose the corruption, has said the abundance of
evidence of wrongdoing of Qatar's bid would force world football's
governing body FIFA to strip the Gulf country of the responsibility.
Almajid is an Arab-American based in the United States and worked for Qatar's 2022 bid team till early 2010.
Qatar
shocked the world by winning the right to stage the 2022 event in 2010.
Since then allegations of bribery and wrongdoing about their bid have
been rife within FIFA.
Almajid said she hoped justice is done but
the prospect scares her a lot as she fears some "extremists" may
identify her responsible if Qatar is stripped. She is under protective
custody of America's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) but fears for
her safety, should the oil-rich country lose out on hosting rights.
"There
are people who are p***** off with me (for speaking out), and what
really p***** them off is that I'm a female, Muslim whistleblower,"
Almajid was quoted as saying by dailymail.co.uk on Saturday.
She
also said outgoing FIFA president Sepp Blatter might take away the 2022
tournament from 2022 as part of his reform agenda to win him praise
"and save his skin".
Blatter quit days after winning a fifth
four-year team to become president after getting engulfed in the FIFA
corruption scandal. He is under investigation by the FBI for possible
wrongdoing.
"I just don't think Blatter actually intends to quit.
Everything he does is very calculated. He'll try very hard to save
himself, I'm sure of it," Almajid said.
The FBI arrested seven
top FIFA officials and indicted 14 people for financial misdemeanour.
Almajid said efforts to force her into retracting her comments have
taken place earlier, which forced her to take protective custody for the
fear of her family's safety that includes two children, one of them
severely disabled.
"The FBI have everything," she claimed.
Almajid also co-operated with a FIFA-funded probe led by Michael Garcia, a former US attorney for New York.