{"id":131654,"date":"2015-07-05T13:59:39","date_gmt":"2015-07-05T13:59:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=131654"},"modified":"2015-07-05T13:59:39","modified_gmt":"2015-07-05T13:59:39","slug":"sepp-blatter-blames-politics-for-qatar-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=131654","title":{"rendered":"Sepp Blatter blames politics for Qatar vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"story_continues_1\" class=\"introduction\">French and German presidents applied political pressure prior to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup votes, according to Fifa president Sepp Blatter.<\/p>\n<p>He alleges ex-French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his German counterpart Christian Wulff sought to influence voting before Qatar and Russia were chosen as respective hosts in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Blatter, 79, said: &#8220;That is the reason why we now have a World Cup in Qatar.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The voting process is now under investigation by the Swiss prosecutors.<\/p>\n<p>He added: &#8220;Those who decided this should also take the responsibility.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Blatter announced on 2 June he would step down from the presidencyat world football&#8217;s governing body at an extraordinary congress to be held between December and March.<\/p>\n<p>His decision followed an investigation into alleged corruption at Fifawhich has seen 18 people indicted in the United States. Blatter said he has &#8220;nothing to fear&#8221; on a personal level.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to Germany&#8217;s <span class=\"text\">Welt am Sonntag<\/span><span class=\"external-link-icon\">\u00a0<\/span> newspaper, Blatter said: &#8220;Before the World Cups were awarded to Russia and Qatar, there were two political interventions. Messrs Sarkozy and Wulff tried to influence their vote-makers.<\/p>\n<p>Blatter also claimed that the German football association (DFB) &#8220;also received such a recommendation that Germany should vote for Qatar due to economic interests.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He added: &#8220;Just look at all the German companies. The Deutsche Bahn (German railways) Hochtief (construction) and many more already had projects in Qatar before the World Cup was awarded there.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I act on the leadership principle. If a majority of the executive committee wants a World Cup in Qatar then I have to accept that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Former DFB president Theo Zwanziger had previously written that Wulff had asked about Qatar&#8217;s chances but he denied it had had any influence.<\/p>\n<p>Blatter has also confirmed that he does not intend to stand for a sixth term in office at Fifa.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>French and German presidents applied political pressure prior to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup votes, according to Fifa president Sepp Blatter. He alleges ex-French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his German counterpart Christian Wulff sought to influence voting before Qatar and Russia were chosen as respective hosts in 2010. Blatter, 79, said: &#8220;That is the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":131655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-131654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/131655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}