The Qatar World Cup remains under suspicion

Eleven years after the FIFA World Cup was awarded to Qatar, led at the time by Joseph blatter, the investigation into the conditions of the contract remains under suspicion in France. A lunch organized at the Elysee Palace on November 23, 2010 focuses the debate on the protagonists who met that morning: the then president Sarkozy, Michel platini, and the crown prince of Qatar, Tamin Ben Hamad Al Thani.

Just nine days after that meeting, the Gulf country was chosen to host the 2022 World Cup, with the ultimate support of the UEFA president. Not everything ends here. Six months later, in May 2011, the Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) fund acquired PSG for € 76 million from Colony Capital. The representative in France of this American investment fund was Sebastien bazin, businessman close to Sarkozy.

At the end of that same year, Laurent Platini, the son of Michel, was hired as the interim general manager of the Qatari kit manufacturer Burrda Sport, a subsidiary of QSI. Although there is no firm accusation, the court is studying whether this designation is closely linked to the favorable vote that his father could cast regarding Qatar taking the 2022 World Cup. Platini has denied these allegations on more than one occasion.

The former UEFA president also repeatedly denied that Sarkozy had any influence or involvement with respect to their support for the Qatari candidacy. That breakfast now eleven years ago, however, is the subject of investigations that continue one year after the World Cup begins in Qatar, a country under suspicion for the way in which it got the contract to organize the most mediatic event of the planet.