Oops! Ex-FIFA president Blatter now says giving Qatar the World Cup was a ‘mistake’

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has admitted that awarding Qatar the 2022 World Cup was, in his words, “a mistake.”

Blatter was in charge of FIFA during one of the most controversial moments in the governing body’s history when, on December 2, 2010, it awarded the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.

Now, two weeks before the World Cup kicks off, Blatter has said that he wishes the tournament was given to Qatar’s chief competitor, the United States.

“The choice of Qatar was a mistake,” Blatter said in an interview with Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger. “It was a bad choice. And I was responsible for that as president at the time.

“At the time, we actually agreed in the executive committee that Russia should get the 2018 World Cup and the USA that of 2022. It would have been a gesture of peace if the two long-standing political opponents had hosted the World Cup one after the other.”

There have been a myriad of controversies surrounding Qatar’s human rights record, but Blatter highlighted a more logistical concern for the Middle East country.

“It’s too small a country,” he said. “Football and the World Cup are too big for that.”

Qatar is roughly the size of Connecticut and only has a population of around 2.8 million. Each of the eight stadiums that will host matches is located within a radius of 34 miles.

Blatter blames Sarkozy-Platini meeting

Searching for an explanation as to why Qatar was awarded the World Cup, Blatter spotlighted a now-infamous meeting between Nicolas Sarkozy and Michel Platini the week before the vote took place.

Sarkozy, who was president of France at the time and Platini, who was president of UEFA, were joined by the crown prince of Qatar, now the Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Blatter says that at that meeting, Sarkozy pressured Platini to convince the UEFA officials on the executive committee to vote for Qatar, not the United States.

“Thanks to the four votes of Platini and his [UEFA] team, the World Cup went to Qatar rather than the United States. It’s the truth,” Blatter said of a vote that ended up going in Qatar’s favor by a 14-8 margin.