France Investigates How Qatar Won 2022 World Cup Bid

France has accused officials from Qatar and FIFA of corruption over the awarding of the 2022 World Cup organization to the tiny oil-rich Gulf country.

The French authorities have already opened a corruption investigation into the circumstances that led to Qatar being awarded the 2022 World Cup.

The investigation, which will be led by a judge, follows a three year operation by prosecutors specializing in financial crimes into the decision in December 2010.

More than half of the 22 members of FIFA’s executive committee who voted have since been either accused of corruption or prosecuted for it, according to a report published by the New York Times.

French investigators have particularly focused on the case because of a meeting that took place at the Élysée Palace, the official residence of France’s president, a month before the vote.

Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president at the time, and two close aides, held a lunch with Michel Platini, a former head of European soccer and an influential voter in the choice of World Cup venues, and Qatar’s then prime minister.

Platini claims he was shocked to see Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who is now Qatar’s emir, in the room, and had attended only to inform Sarkozy that he had decided to pick Qatar to host the soccer tournament, the report read.

French police arrested and interviewed Platini in June 2019. However, the Frenchman denied the claims and insisted that his vote was in favor of global football development.

Earlier, a report by France’s Mediapart revealed that Paris St. Germain club President and BeIN Sports owner Nasser Al Khelaifi had bribed former number two at FIFA, Jerome Valcke.

The inquiry will also concern FIFA’s former president Sepp Blatter. In 2015, Blatter was suspended from football for six years over an alleged payment of $2 million to Platini, only months after the award of the tournament to Qatar in December 2010.

Qatar won the vote over the favored US with a score of 14 to 8 in the final round of voting.

In 2011, only one month after the vote, Qatar announced testing French Dassault Rafale fighter jets to upgrade its military fleet. The Gulf country later bought 24 of the jets for $7 billion.

Qatar has issued strong denials of corruption since the day it was picked to host the World Cup.