Ulrik Pedersen
Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter called the decision to host the 2022 soccer World Cup in Qatar a “mistake” which came about after the personal lobbying of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
In an interview with Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, Blatter said FIFA’s Executive Committee initially wanted to award the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 World Cup to the U.S. “It would have been a gesture of peace if the two long-standing political opponents had hosted the World Cup one after the other,” Blatter said.
But before the 2010 FIFA Congress, Blatter says he was contacted by Michel Platini, the then-president of UEFA—the body which governs European soccer—who said that the plan would no longer work.