THE VOTE to decide the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, hit by corruption allegations, will go ahead as planned on December 2nd, though Fifa president Sepp Blatter admitted it had been a mistake to choose both at the same time.
Blatter also said the vote would be held with only 22 voters if two members of the executive committee, suspended for allegedly offering to sell their votes, were not reinstated by then.
A defiant Blatter added that the sport was in safe hands with Fifa, expressed confidence in the committee which is investigating the case internally and questioned the methods of the Sunday Times newspaper which made the allegations.
“We are five weeks from the final decision so there was never a question of changing anything in the procedure,” he told a news conference after a two-day meeting of the executive committee.
“On December 2nd, here in Zurich, Fifa’s executive committee will hold a vote, which will be a secret ballot, and will determine the national associations which will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup. We cannot stop the match which has already started.”
But Blatter reflected that it was probably a mistake to pick both hosts in the same vote. “I have said I assume the responsibility and I think it was not the right way to go,” he said. “But now, we are in the situation where we have to go on but I’m not convinced now it was the right decision.”
Russia and England are bidding to host the 2018 World Cup along with joint bids from Spain/Portugal and Belgium/Netherlands. Japan, South Korea, Australia, United States and Qatar are candidates for 2022.
Fifa has been shaken by allegations of vote-selling by two Fifa executive committee members and collusion by unnamed bidding nations. Amos Adamu of Nigeria and Reynard Temarii of Tahiti have been provisionally suspended by the ethics committee.
