Qatar and Russia's World Cup organizers are formally accused of bribery

While sport continues to be held back by the coronavirus pandemic, the shadow of corruption looms over the organization of the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the one in Qatar scheduled for November and December 2022. A new bribery accusation by the U.S. Department of Justice is putting FIFA in check. The Russian and Qatari venue elections in 2010 have been under suspicion since the vote, but now the U.S. prosecutor's charges are straightforward and formal.  

As reported by Reuters news agency, according to the United States Department of Justice, representatives working for Russia and Qatar had bribed FIFA officials to cast votes in favour. In particular, the FIFA’s former vice-president Jack Warner is accused of receiving five million dollars through several shell companies to support Russia's candidacy. The accused has always denied any wrongdoing and is at present in his homeland of Trinidad and Tobago, trying to avoid extradition.

As for Qatar, the indictment also states that the three South American members of FIFA’s 2010 executive - Brazil’s Ricardo Teixeira, the late Nicolás Leoz of Paraguay and an unnamed co-conspirator - took bribes to vote for Qatar to host the 2022 tournament. Both Russian and Qatari organisers have always denied the accusations. In 2014, FIFA, under former President Joseph Blatter, conducted an investigation that proved the organisers in Russia and Qatar innocent. In 2015, Blatter was banned from football by FIFA promoted by the arrest of seven FIFA officials on U.S corruption charges.