By Andrew Warshaw
July 30 – Sunil Gulati, head of the US Soccer Federation whose country lost out to Qatar in the battle to stage the 2022 World Cup, has questioned the entire bidding process and called for greater transparency in future.
Gulati was recently narrowly elected as CONCACAF’s new FIFA executive committee member and now wields considerably more influence than previously in his dealings with FIFA’s top brass.
One of his next tasks will be to decide which way to go when FIFA President Sepp Blatter requests his executive committee to support moving the 2022 to winter. In the meantime, he has made it clear that he is still uncomfortable with how the December 2010 ballot, which Qatar won by a landslide amidst unproven allegations of collusion, unravelled.
“The process needs to be far more transparent as far as what matters,” said Gulati. “What’s OK. What’s within the rules and what’s not.”
Gulati appears particularly concerned at the report of the FIFA evaluation panel, which examined all the bidders for both 2018 and 2022 and flagged up several flaws about a Qatar World Cup, being ultimately all but ignored.
“In my view, if you’re going to have a technical part of the bid, the technical part should be given some weight,” he told The Associated Press.
“If you’re going to send people around and do an analysis of stadiums and conditions and government commitments and all of that, then that should have a significant role in final bid process.”
As a result of the spate of allegations that accompanied the simultaneous 2018 and 2022 vote, future World Cup hosts – in other words beyond 2022 – will be decided by FIFA’s full membership rather than by its elite executive committee.
Gulati says the bidding criteria must be laid out more clearly next time. “If it’s only about going to new frontiers, OK. But let’s know that going in. If it’s about maximizing revenue, let’s know that going in. Whatever. I think that needs to be far more clear.”
His comments came a week after Blatter finally made his position clear by publicly backing a winter 2022 tournament as a one-off to avoid the searing summer heat. Gulati said he wasn’t yet sure which way he would go if it came to an exco vote. “I’ve got multiple perspectives on it. How I end up viewing what happens depends on the items in front of us.”
Gulati also told AP that his country and CONCACAF are still interested in playing in the 2016 Copa America, South America’s continental championship, but that it was “absolutely mandatory” the tournament be included in the international calendar so all participants would have access to their best players.
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