Sarkozy faces criminal charges over Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid

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Sat, 05 Aug 2017 - 12:41 GMT

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Sat, 05 Aug 2017 - 12:41 GMT

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov (R) and FIFA President Sepp Blatter hold a copy of the World Cup - REUTERS

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov (R) and FIFA President Sepp Blatter hold a copy of the World Cup - REUTERS

CAIRO – 5 August 2017: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy is facing a criminal investigation over allegations that he accepted bribes to support Qatar’s bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the Telegraph reported Thursday.

The probe centers around a Qatari company buying a stake in a French energy and waste company, Veolia, and the sale of football club Paris Saint-Germain to another Qatari firm.

According to the Telegraph, investigators are examining whether Sarkozy received kickbacks from those deals in exchange for France’s vote for Qatar. Sarkozy was president at the time his country supported the Qatari bid.

Sarkozy has always had suspicious ties with Qatari emirs, French local media frequently reports. He has been linked to an investigation into a missing tranche of millions of euros from deals at the time of Qatar’s successful bid for the 2022 World Cup football tournament.

French investigators are examining a series of business deals, including the sale of a stake in Veolia, a waste management company, and the purchase in 2010 of the football club Paris Saint-Germain by Oryx Qatar Sports Investments, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.

The selection process for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments has been mired in allegations of widespread corruption and bribery.

In 2015, U.S. federal prosecutors indicted top officials from FIFA, football’s world governing body, on bribery and money laundering charges.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter was subsequently forced to step down and was banned from soccer for six years.

Sarkozy is currently facing a separate criminal probe into allegations of illegal financing during his 2012 re-election campaign.

A leaked audio recording circulated on social networks revealed Blatter’s involvement with Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, along with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the European Union Football Federation’s Michel Platini, regarding Qatar’s bid to host the FIFA World Cup in 2022.

Blatter stressed that Sarkozy and Platini welcomed Qatar’s bid to host the 2022 tournament, following meetings with Qatar’s Tamim. “Later on, the situation changed completely in favor of Qatar,” Blatter added, according to the leaked audio recording.

The newspaper alleges that Sarkozy, who was president of France between 2007 and 2012, is being tied to the probe into claims that funds were “siphoned off” from both these deals.

The 2010 decision to award the tournament to Qatar, even though only three of the 12 stadiums proposed for use in the bid had been built, caused considerable upset at the time.

The Qatari football team is currently ranked 79th out of 211 nations in the FIFA world rankings; at the time of the 2010 decision they were 113th and had never qualified for World Cup finals, although as hosts they will automatically be entered into the 2022 tournament.

France emerged as a key backer of the Qatari bid. Former international midfielder Michel Platini, who was then the head of European football association UEFA, voted for Qatar.

It has been alleged his then-boss, Sepp Blatter, the disgraced former head of FIFA, persuaded other FIFA committee members to back the Gulf state’s bid.

Platini was at a meeting held just nine days before the vote at the French president’s residence, the Elysee Palace in Paris, which was attended by Sarkozy and the then-Qatari crown prince, now emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

On the agenda were a slew of trade deals, including a contract to sell Airbus planes to Qatar Airways and the prospective purchase of PSG, who are in the news this week for their €222 million ($261M) deal to buy Brazilian forward Neymar from Barcelona.

“I knew Sarkozy wanted the people from Qatar to buy PSG,” Platini later told the Guardian. “I understood that Sarkozy supported the candidature of Qatar. But he never asked me, or to vote for Russia [for the 2018 World Cup]. He knows my personality. I always vote for what is good for football. Not for myself, not for France.”

The allegations swirling around Veolia relate to the role played by Ghanim bin Saad Al Saad, a Qatari businessman. Qatari Diar, a company run by Al Saad, took a 5 percent stake in the French company in April 2010, and investigators are trying to trace €182 million, which “may have been siphoned off on the sidelines.”

As Sarkozy is close to current and former top executives at Veolia, prosecutors may be attempting to prove a link between the missing money and the former president. His lawyer, Thierry Herzog, denied any wrongdoing by his client.

Qatar’s World Cup bid has long been the subject of immense media interest. The Sunday Times newspaper revealed weeks ahead of the choice of Qatar for the 2022 tournament and Russia for the 2018 one that FIFA committee members were offering their votes for sale, and subsequent investigations focused on the activities of Qatar’s top football official, Mohammad bin Hammam, in the successful campaign

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