Did Qatar convince members of the Fรฉdรฉration Internationale de Football Association’s (FIFA) executive commitee to vote in its favor on December 2, 2010, during the vote to awarding the right to host the 2022 World Cup, via a bonus, which was provided for prior to the vote and included in a television contract signed between FIFA and the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera?
French investigating judges Serge Tournaire and Virginie Tilmont have been conducting a judicial investigation into “corruption” amid the conditions by which Qatar, “a country rated the lowest technically among all candidates” by FIFA’s inspection teams, secured the right to host the tournament. As part of the investigation, the judges have been conducting verification efforts to answer the question of corruption. In late 2022, they sent a judicial cooperation request to the Swiss authorities.
The judges became intrigued when reading the contract between Al Jazeera Sports (now BeIN Sports) and FIFA, which was worth $400 million (โฌ347 million) in total and was signed at the end of 2010. It includes a clause stating that “in the event that the 2022 competition is awarded to the State of Qatar, Al-Jazeera shall (…) pay to FIFA (…) the monetary amount of one hundred million United States dollars as a non-refundable contribution towards the costs of the host broadcastย production.”
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