English FA chairman thinks Qatar may be stripped of World Cup

English FA chairman thinks Qatar may be stripped of World Cup

Published May. 30, 2015 12:33 p.m. ET

Football Association chairman Greg Dyke suspects Qatar could be stripped of the right to host the 2022 World Cup.

In a damning week for FIFA which saw seven of its officials arrested on corruption charges, Dyke has been one of the leading critics of president Sepp Blatter and the organisation he heads.

Twenty-four hours after speaking of his dismay at Blatter's re-election as FIFA president, Dyke launched another attack on the Swiss, branding him "paranoid" for claiming UEFA was responsible for orchestrating a "hate" campaign against him.

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Seven FIFA officials were arrested on US corruption indictments in Zurich this week and the US justice department has indicted 18 people related to football on corruption charges.

Suspicion has fallen on the bidding process for the 2018 Russia World Cup and Qatar 2022.

Dyke is convinced the authorities will unearth evidence discrediting the bidding process for the Qatar World Cup and if that is the case the FA chairman sees no reason why the country should host the tournament.

"People are assuming that 2022 will still be in Qatar, but I am not sure that is certain anymore," Dyke told Press Association Sport.

"You look at what the Swiss authorities are doing. These are the Swiss authorities, not some small prosecuting authority from a small country - this is the Swiss - they are looking at what level of corruption was there into the awarding of that World Cup.

"If they come out and say it was corrupt I don't think we will see a Qatar World Cup."

Dyke dodged the question of whether England could step in if the World Cup was taken away from Qatar, whose officials have repeatedly denied corruption played a part in their success.

"What we do or don't do is irrelevant at this stage," Dyke said.

FIFA ruled on Saturday that a European nation could host the 2026 World Cup, and while he was not overly optimistic on the matter, Dyke would not rule out an English bid.

"We won't bid for anything while Blatter is there. If he is not there we would look at the future," Dyke added.

"I doubt it would go to a European country anyway because 2018 is in Europe."

Blatter was re-elected for a fifth term as FIFA president on Friday despite the arrests in Switzerland.

He garnered 133 votes - 60 more than his rival Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan.

After his re-election, Blatter rounded on his enemies.

In an interview with Swiss TV station RTS, Blatter took aim at UEFA, claiming it had treated him with disdain.

"It is a hate that comes not just from a person at UEFA - it comes from the UEFA organisation that cannot understand that in 1998 I became president,'' he said.

Dyke was not impressed by Blatter's comments.

He said: "I think he is being a bit paranoid but he ought to be because I am not sure he will be there that long.

"A third of the delegates voted against him, which given the amount of patronage he carries, that is a remarkable number and the people who have voted against him are by and large the big nations - most of them in Europe and, we are told, the whole of Latin America.

"These are the two big footballing continents, they don't want him anymore, we don't want him anymore and there is nothing he can do to us."

Dyke has no faith in Blatter to rid FIFA of corruption, as he vowed to do following his re-election.

"I don't think there is any chance Sepp Blatter will clean up FIFA," he said.

"He has been there 16 years and he hasn't cleaned it up in that time, why would he clean it up now?

"There has been scandal after scandal. There is not a chance he will clean it up.

"Any self-respecting leader would have resigned this week because when corruption happens on the scale, Blatter has to take responsibility.

"If he had been head of any company, any organisation where there was proper scrutiny, he would have gone."

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