VIDEO: 2022 corruption allegations based on fabrication
Fabricated information was used by UK-based Sunday Times to level corruption charges against Qatar’s successful bid to host the Football World Cup 2022, a former top official of the FIFA has said.
Michel Zen-Ruffinen, former General Secretary of FIFA, told INSIDEWorldFootball.com that he was certain that the information he had received from a European source [football official] was a fabrication, referring to the rumours of vote collusion in the race for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosting rights.
“Today, I am certain that the information I received from a European source [football official] was a fabrication,” said Zen-Ruffinen in an exclusive interview with INSIDEWorldFootball.com.
The former General Secretary of FIFA is critical of English journalists who misled him. “They portrayed themselves as marketing consultants who worked for a non-European bid [fair to assume it was not an Asian bid] and offered me a consulting agreement that I signed after reviewing the credentials they showed me. It was a proper setup and of course I never got paid for the work I did,” he said.
“The alleged Spain/Portugal and Russia/Qatar collusion, which was published in The Sunday Times was a fabrication, of that I am certain today.”
The European member of a bid team, who offered him the information on vote collusion did so with the purpose of him sharing it with ‘marketing consultants’ (who were journalists) had fabricated that story, IWF said. “That European now works for a major media empire.”
Regarding his source, Zen-Ruffinen said: “There were allegations of collusion coming from all over the world. Those rumours were not credible.”
“One of the persons (who was representing the marketing agency of the bid committee) I spoke to has gone back to the Press,” he told INSIDEWorldFootball.com, exposing the conspiracy behind the Sunday Times campaign.
The collusion story was published by The Sunday Times in 2010 after a so-called sting operation and it caused much a stir in the soccer world. The Spain-Portugal and Qatar World Cup bids were subjected to an investigation by FIFA’s ethics committee following allegations that they agreed to trade votes but they were cleared of any wrongdoing after no evidence was found.
According to Zen-Ruffinen, he was approached by the marketing agency of a bid committee with an offer of appointment as a consultant, which he agreed to after due consideration.
He said the information he collected from two sources- one in Africa and the other in Europe—was misused by journalists who posed as employees of the marketing agency. He said his conversation was recorded without his knowledge, which is an illegal practice in Switzerland.
Explaining the setup, the former senior FIFA official said in the first place he was provided with “fabricated information” which was used as source for the Sunday Times story.
“That was a time when people were exchanging information as two bids, one for the 2018 and the other for the 2022 World Cup were being decided at the same time.”
On the recent allegations raised by The Sunday Times, Zen-Ruffinen, who left FIFA in 2002, said until clear evidence is provided, bribing charges should be stopped.
jaldi-jaldi: wherever there is money, there is corruption. However, in Qatar it is at a very low scale if it exists at all. This evident from the fact that payments in government offices are made through ATM cards just so that real hard cash do not get to change hands.
I'm not Qatari, I am an expat worker, I'm no FIFA employer, I'm being objective here. The Allegation here is biased. Yes Qatar is small, yes it has money, yes it wants a future, a strong and stable one. A country which started its infrastructure since the early 70s is a success story on its own. It's booming because if it's natural oil and gas reserves. Give it a chance. Qatar is a safe country. Qatar is a football loving nation. Yes it has it's own football league. So what if it has not qualified before. This gives Inspiration to those small countries which never qualified and to the Arab world. So what if the tournament is moved to winter or Autumn. Yes you can drink alcohol there. As for the workers they are there at there own choice. They wanted to be there to save money , a lot more money to them than they would have earned in their own country. So 20,000 men send them home and 20,000 families are worse off. Yes the workers rights need improving. Qatar is listening and changing. They are taking action. All foreigners need permission to leave the country , all foreigners are given this permission. It's not just the workers. In the end they choose to live there. There is freedom of movement . It is not a corrupt nation and by far investment is in education , and aid relief in developing countries. Go to qatar before you make your accusations see for yourself. The comments made here are so biased, speculative and to be honest quite discriminatory. A nation a small nation trying to place them selves on the map. I hope they retain their right to host. I hope the world apologises if they are proved to be honest , in which I have every confidence they are.
Nope. Not the same person. Why should we , we got the opposite stand in this case. Bribe allegations against Qatar are false. But it is clear that Blatter is corrupt and that is why Ruffinen was fired by Blatter in 2002. Blatter didn't want Ruffinen to dig more into it and this had nothing to do with the Qatar bid.
Gas Qatar and fire777 are the same persons
Mr.Ruffinen and his assistant in FIFA Mr. Doviken was fired by Sepp Blatter when they in 2002 was looking into allegations of bribes . So I'm certain that if Mr. Ruffinen could pile some shit on Sepp Blatter he would have. Based on this I believe it is correct that it's just a fabricated story.