The Cesspit of Corruption: How Qatar Bought a World Cup

In January 2015, The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe published a report by Michael Connarty titled, ‘The Reform of Football Governance’. This report sought to both examine and expose the alleged corruption which led to Qatar’s successful bid in December 2010 to host the 2022 World Cup.

That success caused consternation amongst the wider footballing world; a country without any footballing heritage - and one that required the tournament to be played in searing heat (subsequently moved to winter, the first World Cup of its type) - was to host football’s most famous competition (Ng, 2018).

A decision that was described by Conn (2017a) as a ‘shock and far-reaching vote’ (p.23), and one that was met with incredulity and ‘disbelief’ according to Blake and Calvert (2015a, p.15). Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert (as above) prompted the aforementioned report by publishing their 2014 exposé of Qatar and FIFA in The Sunday Times.

This groundbreaking piece of journalism made numerous allegations surrounding the country’s bid; the evidence documented in the exposé was described as a ‘smoking gun’ by Alexandra Wrage, a former member of FIFA’s independent governance committee (Calvert and Blake, 2014a, p.1-2).