Blatter confirms new guidelines will be put in place after the next World Cup…
Sepp Blatter, Fifa President, has confirmed that human-rights criteria will be a compulsory assessment for countries bidding to host future World Cup tournaments.
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The human-rights record of 2022 World Cup hosts Qatar has come under heavy criticism, and this latest news from Blatter comes as a result of the President of Fifa’s acknowledgement that the world governing body of football must modernise.
The 78-year-old faces a reelection in May, and is to compete against Portugal legend Luis Figo, former Fifa executive Jerome Champagne, vice-president of Fifa for Asia Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein and Dutch sports director Michael van Praag for the title.
With the reelection in mind, Blatter has addressed the poor decisions made in awarding Qatar as host-nation of the 2022 world football competition:
“I will tell you, that human rights and other rights will be part of the basic conditions to organise the competition. That will be new for the next World Cup – the World Cup 2026,” Blatter was quoted by the Independent.
The Swiss football administrator has come under scrutiny; Fifa seemingly ignored the poor human-rights of Qatar when they were controversially awarded the tournament.
There are a number of major concerns regarding Qatar’s suitability as a host country – their limited football history, the high-cost expectancy, the local climate, and their human-rights record – and such issues have led suggestions that bribery took place between the Qatar bid committee and FIFA members and executives.
Blatter himself has even stated that the decision made was a mistake, and vows that such an error will not take place again.
“2 December 2010, I will never forget this date where we have made the decision for two World Cups, which was wrong,” he said.
“We have also taken the decision later on that it will be the congress that will elect the designated World Cup organiser and the list of requirements.”