All language subtitles for A0166789

Welcome to the Messe Centre
here in Zurich,

as FIFA's Executive Committee vote
on the World Cup bids.

The World Cup is beloved by hundreds
of millions of people.

And rumours of corruption have
swirled around it for decades.

As you can see, everybody's gathered
and really excited.

This is the first time they've
actually announced two hosts
simultaneously.

It is now my pleasure to welcome
on stage the President of FIFA.

Sepp Blatter was the guy at the top.
He set the tone.

FIFA is not corrupt.
People in FIFA were corrupt.

The 2018 FIFA World Cup
will be organised in...

Russia.

What we were investigating were
closely guarded secrets

held at the highest level of some
of the world's most powerful
governments.

Russia has won 2018.
We move on to 2022.

The winner is... Qatar.

That is astonishing!

What the Qataris and the Russians
were doing was corruption on
an industrial scale.

In football, to get the World Cup,
everything is possible.

I understood what was happening,
that this was bribes.

It all comes down to money.

People who have even a casual
understanding of what FIFA represents

associate it with corruption
and cronyism

and a lack of transparency.

FIFA's corrupt.
I don't know what's going on.

World organisation FIFA
is incredibly corrupt.

FIFA is corrupt to its core and
probably all the way to the top.

Many people will look at Sepp
Blatter as the most despicable
man in world sport.

Fraud, bribes, money laundering,
racketeering. You name it.

Somewhere, sooner or later, somebody
is gonna get caught in FIFA.

What has been revealed so far
is a Mafia-style crime syndicate.

My only hesitation
in using that term

is that it is almost insulting
to the Mafia.

I always say that being
an investigative journalist
isn't a proper grown-up job

because it's too much of a caper,
it's too much fun.

Just the ability
to cause trouble for people

who are wielding power corruptly

and to stick up for ordinary people
who are getting screwed over.

It's a really thrilling feeling.

My name is Heidi Blake.

I worked for the Sunday Times
Insight Investigations Team
for about three-and-a-half years.

We are the part of the newspaper
which is given more time

to investigate longer-term projects.

I'm Jonathan Calvert,

I'm the Insight editor
of the Sunday Times.

Corruption is an awful thing
in the world.

In order to encourage reform,
you've got to open up the truth.

In 2014, Jonathan and I were
approached by a trusted source

who we'd worked with previously,

who told us that they were
in contact with someone

who had access to
a vast cache of documents,

which they said could potentially
blow the lid off

the Qatari bid to host the World Cup.

We started off being written off,
being the unconventional bid.

No one saw that
we had a chance to win.

Countries campaign very hard to win
the right to host the World Cup

because it is the biggest event,
in terms of sports, in the world.

The World Cup goes
far beyond football.

It brings the whole planet together
for four weeks every four years.

Football is a global language.

If you want to connect people
emotionally,

if you want to connect them
culturally,

then use their game.

You know, kick a ball around.

Looking for Klinsmann,
ever aware of his presence.

Klinsmann with it, turns... scores!

What a goal!

Where the World Cup is played
really mans a lot to the country,
the federation.

It means a lot to the growth
of soccer in that area.

But while the host company
certainly reaps benefits,

the single greatest benefactor
of the World Cup is FIFA.

It's their event.

And it is the biggest driver of
revenue for that organisation

and has been for quite a while.

I'm so not a football fan
that embarking on this story,

Why do people care about football?

What is exciting about football?

When I started to realise just how
corrupt world football really was,

that's when I got interested.

We met the source in a London hotel.

They were keen for us to go ahead
but there were conditions.

They weren't just gonna hand
the information over to us,

it was too sensitive.

Which meant that we couldn't have
them in our office

and we had to go
a long way outside London

and view them on the computers
belonging to the source,

in a tiny office which
we called "the bunker".

We had to operate under
intense secrecy.

We weren't even allowed to tell our
friends and family what we were
working on or even where we were.

We were monitored constantly by CCTV.

All of our activity was monitored by
a keystroke monitor on our computers.

We could not download anything.

We could access and view the files
but we couldn't take anything away.

In the world of FIFA,
it was entirely plausible

that there could be
people watching,

that people would be trying
to discover who our source was.

And it was important
that we kept it secret.

So it was kind of under those
conditions that we began our research

to understand the organisation of
FIFA and its structure and history.

I had the privilege I was in FIFA
during extremely interesting times.

And I could observe much more than
probably other people could observe.

My name is Guido Tognoni,
I was Media Officer in FIFA.

My job was to give FIFA
an international image

to create football
as No.1 sport in the world.

When I started with FIFA in '84,
nobody knew FIFA.

FIFA is the governing body
of world soccer.

It has 211 member nations
and six different confederations

which are the continental areas
that make up those member nations.

FIFA started from scratch,
it was an amateur association.

And then the Brazilian Joao
Havelange became president in 1974.

Havelange was the President of FIFA
for decades

and really oversaw its growth.

But the brain of football
was in Zurich

with the former General Secretary
Sepp Blatter.

Et voila.

Football is at its best, I would
say, in the organisation today.

I am proud of what I have done.

Sepp Blatter is the twinkly-eyed,
grandfatherly,

white-haired overlord
of world football.

A man who's cultivated
this kind of avuncular image

but who actually is
a rapacious powerbroker.

Sepp Blatter is a master
at patronage politics.

He knows how to play this game,
how to work it.

He is FIFA, his whole life is FIFA.
He can survive any controversy.

I am a positive human being.

Smiling is the best weapon
to show your teeth to your opponent.

Together with his predecessor,
Joao Havelange,

Blatter revolutionised
the world of football.

Every single country in the world,
pretty much,

has its own football association.

Regardless of the population
of the country,

every single member association
has one vote at the FIFA Congress.

So a country like Brazil with a
couple of hundred million people

has one vote for the FIFA Presidency.

So does the Caribbean island of
Montserrat with a population of 5,000

And that means there's huge power
concentrated in parts of the world

where you have lots of countries
with tiny populations.

Havelange looked and said,
"Africa's got 50-some nations

that each have one vote."

It was a politically calculated move

that we're going to go to a country

and we're going to say,
"What do you need?

And in return, when it comes time
to vote for re-election,

you're gonna give me your vote."

Havelange doled out vast sums
of development money

to football associations
around the world.

In doing that, he secured the loyalty
of voters at the FIFA Congress

who could be relied upon to back him
in successive presidential elections.

There's a culture of bribery
and patronage

that Sepp Blatter and his mentor
Havelange established within FIFA

that just meant that nobody even
really stopped to think

that what they were doing was wrong.

Blatter and Havelange accepted
bribery as part of the system.

They built their power on bribery

and they observed the corruption
growing and growing

and they never intervened
against it.

They not only ignored it,
they even cultivated it.

And this is where the tiny Gulf
state of Qatar comes into the story.

Because when Blatter stood to be
the President of FIFA in 1998,

he won with help from Qatar's
top football official,

Mohamed bin Hammam.

Mohamed bin Hammam was one of
the most powerful figures in
world football.

For many years, he was the President
of the Asian Football Confederation.

He is a billionaire in his own right.

It was bin Hammam who bankrolled
Sepp Blatter's campaign
for the presidency in 1998.

Blatter and bin Hammam
were close friends in those days.

Blatter had many friends - as long
as they were helpful for him.

And bin Hammam himself,
he liked to help people.

Bin Hammam would also help you
if you were in trouble.
He's that type of person.

How are you?
Fine, thank you.

Welcome to Doha.
Thank you very much.

And thanks to bin Hammam,

Blatter was able to satisfy the
needs of the African delegates.

There were a crucial series of
meetings that bin Hammam held

in a hotel suite on the eve
of the election,

where the leaders of African football
were invited

to a private audience
with bin Hammam.

Rumours swirled that bin Hammam was
generous in doling out brown
envelopes stuffed full of cash.

Blatter didn't pay bribes himself.

So when he says to anybody,
"I didn't pay, didn't bribe anybody"

then literally, he's right.

But money was given. This is a fact.

Mohamed bin Hammam is a character
who came to really fascinate me

and Jonathan in the course
of our research.

He was born into a relatively
ordinary family in Qatar

and he really was
a self-made billionaire.

He set up a construction company
in Doha in the '70s, Kemco,

and won a load of state contracts
to build the skyscrapers

which were then shooting up
all over the city.

At the same time, he was a real lover
of football, which was rare in Qatar.

As a young entrepreneur
in his early 20s,

he took on the role of managing
a local football club

and was hugely successful,

managed to steer the club
from absolutely nowhere

to winning a whole load of leagues.

And in doing so, he caught the
attention of the then Crown Prince,

who later became the Emir of Qatar.

For a long time,
Qatar was relatively undeveloped.

In the 1950s, they started to
discover liquid petroleum gas,

which was the thing that would make
the country enormously wealthy,

especially the Qatar Royal Family.

Qatar is a rigidly
hierarchical society

with the Royal Family at the apex.

It runs a sovereign wealth fund which
holds huge real estate holdings

in New York, London, across Europe
and around the world.

During the course
of the investigation,

we realised just how much
they owned.

The Shard is owned by the Qataris.

Canary Wharf is owned by the Qataris

and this building is owned
by the Qatar Investment Authority.

Bin Hammam got a place
on the Emir's advisory counsel

and kind of became
part of the Qatari elite.

But at the same time, he has a deeply
subservient relationship with
the Royal Family.

He had a nickname, actually.
They called him "the Slave".

This was partly
a really shocking reference

to his distant African ancestry.

And partly a reference to his slavish
devotion to the Qatari Royal Family.

The Emir took over from his father
determined to modernise Qatar,

to build Doha up,

to try to position Qatar as
a major player on the world stage

by investing in the arts,
in media and in sport.

And so bin Hammam became a key pawn
in the Emir's strategy

to turn Qatar into
a global powerhouse,

in this case in the field of sport.

Working in any sporting event
is amazing

because you're working with people
from all over the world.

So it's a very gratifying
thing to do.

My name's Phaedra Almajid and I was
the Media Specialist for Qatar 2022.

Internally, what is the feeling
among the Qatar bid team

about your chances
to win the host rights?

It was always positive.

It was always positive. Um...

We had Mohamed bin Hammam.

I mean, that's number one.

Whatever we needed, we had.

No one had a budget.

Qatar would do anything to win.

Mohamed bin Hammam, at the
beginning, he was himself critical

and asking himself whether Qatar was
the right place to host a World Cup.

But if the Emir wants this,

then Mohamed bin Hammam
has no choice than delivering.

Qatar is a country where women are
treated as second-class citizens,

where homosexuality
is a punishable crime,

where the press is heavily censored.

FIFA conducted its own objective
analysis of the various bids

which found that Qatar was an
unsuitable place to host a World Cup

and a dangerous place
to host a World Cup.

The summer temperatures would be a
hazard to the health of the players

and the fans.

Doha simply didn't have space for
the kind of stadium infrastructure

that was going to be required.

There was no football infrastructure
at all in Qatar.

There were hardly any teams.

They would have to build
nine new stadiums.

And there wasn't enough room
for them in Doha

so they would have to kind of
create a whole new city.

It has a large workforce of workers
from countries like Nepal and India.

They work in punishing
and dangerous conditions,

often on the construction sites which
are building these many skyscrapers

which define the Doha landscape.

Foreign workers now outnumber
Qataris by more than four to one.

They're kept on a tight leash
by a system called kafala,

that gives the employer the right
to decide where they work

and when or even if they can leave.

They are owned by another individual
lock, stock and barrel.

That's slavery.

Sepp Blatter, in all fairness,
didn't want to go to Qatar.

He wanted to go to Russia
then to United States.

America changed the whole dynamics
of the World Cup,

because America,
when it hosted it in 1994,

it made so much money for FIFA.

I hope to have the chance
to welcome all of you in 2022.

I told the President my idea,

that the World Cup 2022 shall
go back to the United States.

We would not have this discussion
if it came out as I wanted.

Sepp Blatter was the most powerful
man in sports for a long time.

But when it came to making
the most significant decisions,

the Executive Committee
had all the power.

The Executive Committee, or ExCo,

was a group of a couple of dozen
of the most powerful

leaders in world football.

It's incredibly powerful,
particularly in relation to

the awarding of the rights
to host a World Cup,

because that's a decision taken
solely by the Executive Committee.

They decide in a secret ballot
and they don't have to explain
their decision

or be accountable for it in any way.

The FIFA Executive Committee was
made up of quite a few
extraordinary people.

So you'd have super-famous football
players in Franz Beckenbauer

and Michel Platini.

At the same time, you'd have
billionaires like Mohamed bin Hammam

and you'd also have some kind
of football administrators

who'd found their way to the top.

If you were a country that was
bidding for the World Cup,

you were only focused on
these 24 people.

"How can I make them like me more?"

This was an unbelievable career.

They go to World Cups, they stay
there for one month or six weeks,

they live like in a paradise.

They got the feeling they were
the masters of the universe,

not only of football.

FIFA's international headquarters
in Zurich

kind of resembled
the lair of a Bond villain.

There's a couple of floors
above ground

but the vast majority of the building
is subterranean.

The members of the Executive
Committee can meet in the centrepiece

which is its boardroom - again,
underground, shrouded in darkness.

The men who control the game gather
around a huge oval table,

a bit like the one in Dr Strangelove.

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here,
this is the War Room!

There are those who will tell you
of the supposed sordid secrets

that lie deep in our Bond villain
headquarters

in the hills above Zurich.

They would have you believe
that I sit in my office,

with a sinister grin,

gently stroking the chin of an
expensive white Persian cat.

But it's not what we are.
That's not FIFA. That's not me.

For almost as long
as I can remember,

there have been questions
about the ethics behind

how decisions were made
by the Executive Committee

in terms of where
the World Cup is held.

Almost all of the awards of
World Cup hosting venues -

2002, 2006, 2010 - were tainted.

So the idea that FIFA was going to
award two World Cups

in the same voting process

was rife with problems.

The reason our source trusted us
with the Qatari documents

is because of my prior work
investigating FIFA.

Back in 2010, somebody had told us
there was corruption in the bidding

for the two World Cups
which were 2018 and 2022.

Doesn't want to zip all the way.

I decided that probably
one of the most effective ways

of getting under the skin of FIFA
was to go undercover.

My colleague and I pretended
to be representatives

of a group of companies in America

that wanted the American bid to win.

We would organise meetings round the
world with various FIFA executives

and get them talking about
what it would take to win.

When it comes to talking about
things like corruption and bribes,

people are very circumspect, they
don't normally say it outright.

What was extraordinary about this
was just how open everyone was

about the culture of bribery.

It was as if it was expected
that this was the moment

when they could earn their fortune.

And this was their payback for being
loyal and supportive of Sepp Blatter

We wrote our story and it went
around the world, it was huge.

Football's world governing body FIFA
says it's investigating allegations

made in the Sunday Times
that two of its officials agreed

to sell their votes in the contest
to host the 2018 World Cup.

Are you pleased
at what the Sunday Times did

in uncovering corruption
inside FIFA?

No, I am not pleased about that

because this is not very fair.

Football's world governing body,
FIFA, has suspended two members
of its Executive Committee.

When FIFA's Executive Committee
decides the destinations

of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups,

there will now be just 22 men,
not 24, entitled to vote.

What we did was really hated by the
FIFA Executive Committee members.

Blatter had to keep them onside
so he had to attack us as well,

even though all we'd done is
actually exposed the corruption.

What can you do against
the international media

saying FIFA is corrupt?

FIFA is not corrupt.

People in FIFA were corrupt.

But as they were members of FIFA,

naturally they say,

"Who is responsible?
It's the President."

When we were in the bunker,

I remember being quite paranoid.

We'd work from kind of early in the
morning till way past dark at night.

We'd go home and I'd wonder who
the people in the car park were

who were watching us.

FIFA is a very
cloak and dagger world.

We were having to operate ourselves
in a very cloak and dagger way.

Working under those conditions at
length - we were there three months -

does start to get to you.

We'd been given a huge cache of
emails and documents and bills

and flight records
and all sorts of things.

It all centred on
Mohamed bin Hammam.

The main people involved in
the Qatar 2022 bid

were Hassan Al-Thawadi
and the Chairman,

who was His Highness Sheikh Mohamed.

Mohamed bin Hammam was never an
official member of the bid team.

But I don't think anyone thought
that he wasn't part of the bid team.

Mohamed bin Hammam was working hand
in hand with the Qatar bid

despite their denial that they had
anything to do with him whatsoever.

They were so close that the bid team
had its offices in the same building

as Mohamed bin Hammam
ran his Kemco operation.

Your own bid chairman described him
as Qatar's biggest asset in the bid.

Is that not the case?
Yes.

Mohamed bin Hammam
is in favour of the bid.

There were two processes going on.

You'd have the official Qatar bid
who did all the obvious publicity,

they'd have the brand ambassadors
and all that.

And then you had the secret process
which was undertaken

by the man who knew all
the characters, Mohamed bin Hammam.

Bin Hammam knew it'd be very
difficult for FIFA Executive
Committee members

to justify casting their votes
for such a strange and outside
candidate as Qatar.

So what he did was, he went around
the world forging alliances

and doling out largesse
to buy up the support

of dozens and dozens
of football officials

across Asia and Africa in particular.

He travelled to the Bahamas,
he travelled to Cape Town,

he travelled to Tokyo,
he travelled to South Korea.

And he would lavish them with
spending money and private cruises

and stays in five-star hotels
and incredible meals.

He would meet with them and ask them
about things they needed

and talk to them about
the Qatar World Cup bid.

We could see there were then these
very intense flurries of activity

in the Kemco accounts directly
following those meetings,

where bin Hammam's assistants would
be instructed to dispense sums

ranging from $10,000
to $200,000 at a time,

directly into the bank accounts of
the very football officials he'd met.

There were lots of
different payments,

the first direct evidence we'd found
that bribes were being paid

in exchange for World Cup support.

"I sincerely thank you
from the bosom of my heart

for your continuous support.

And I hereby provide you
with the full bank details

that you can use for any transfer."

I thought frankly that it was a
fantasy for Qatar at the beginning.

But dreams can come true.

My name's Sunil Gulati.

I was the Chairman of America's 2010
World Cup bid for the 2022 event.

When we started the process,
I believed we were gonna win.

We're gonna announce 18 cities with
an average capacity of 78,000 seats.

Far bigger than anyone else
could hope to get.

Magnitude is enormous.

Every team in the World Cup will
have home fans without travelling.

What it'd be able to do
for the world of soccer,

economically, culturally,
was a big part of our pitch.

United States went really hard
after the hosting rights

for the 2022 World Cup.

They put together a really
extensive campaign,

they had a bid committee that
brought in all types of celebrities

to help make the case.

Listen.

It's the roar of millions of soccer
fans all across the United States

calling for the FIFA World Cup.

The US have numbers...
Dempsey's missed it...

Donovan hasn't!

It's Landon Donovan!

The past 25 years have been
a wonderful journey,

both for me personally and for the
sport of football in my country.

Going to Switzerland
and being part of the 2022 bid

was a bizarre experience.

And for a 28-year-old kid
who was so naive to that world,

it was fascinating.

I was thrilled to be there, giving
that presentation to ExCo members.

And naively thought it would matter.

Looking down and seeing people
sleeping, not paying attention,

on their phones, did make me think
it was a foregone conclusion.

People had already
made up their minds.

Sunil Gulati understood very clearly

that he could play the game dirty

but he didn't want to do that.

I remember having conversations
with him,

"Sunil, do you think this kind
of stuff is going on?"

He was, like,
"Landon, there's stuff going on."

I went and met Mr Blatter before
we announced we were gonna bid

and I said, "Look, we're not gonna
do whatever it takes."

He understood that. We were gonna
play absolutely by the rules.

When you say, "do whatever,"
what do you mean?

Just that.

Just that.

To use a soccer metaphor, if the
ball was a yard away from the line

and there was a chance to punch it
in with a handball, we wouldn't do.

Did you bribe FIFA members
to win the World Cup?

Plain and simply, no.

At no point did you pay
any money or gifts,

or anything which would be
on FIFA's rules to win influence

in the race for 2022?

We never broke FIFA's rules.

When we went to Angola for the
African Football Federation meetings

all the big ExCo members
were staying in the same hotel.

I was called to go to Hassan's room.

So there was Hassan.

Obviously there was me.

There was Diallo,
who was part of the bid team

but not part of the bid team.

He came to us from
Mohamed bin Hammam.

There were a couple of meetings
with the FIFA ExCo members

Hayatou, Adamu and Anouma.

Hayatou came in and Hassan said,

"We want, of course, your vote."
And that seemed pretty normal to me.

And then Diallo just dropped a bomb
that, you know,

"We'll give you $1 million
for your football federation."

Hayatou laughed and said, "No,
I can't do much with $1 million."

And Diallo said, "$1.5 million."

Kind of when you watch movies,
you think of bribery and corruption

like, underground,
in a tunnel somewhere.

So I remember being
just very shocked,

like not sure what
was really happening.

And I remember on the second or
third time this was repeating itself

I just started laughing
hysterically,

because it was obviously at that
point I understood what was
happening,

that this was bribes.

There was nothing extraordinary
about the moment for those men.

As a watcher, bystander,
it was an extraordinary moment

that I'll never forget.

The more we worked on this story,
the more aware we became

of just how high the stakes were.

It became clear to us that
what we were investigating

were closely guarded secrets
held at the highest level

of some of the world's
most powerful governments.

Mr President,
on behalf of the government,

it gives me great pleasure to
welcome you here in Downing Street.

The members of several bid teams,
including the England bid,

had engaged their own private spy
networks to spy on each other

and to conduct counter-espionage
operations

to try and defend themselves
against being spied on.

These are big, kind of global
clashes going on,

which is why you find there's not
just an ordinary football focus.

Intelligence agents and private
detectives were involved.

Christopher Steele is a respected
former MI6 officer.

And he shot to prominence during
the 2016 presidential campaign.

The infamous Steele dossier alleged
that the Trump campaign

was co-ordinating with Russia.

A lesser-known fact about him is that
during the 2010 bidding process,

he was hired by the England team to
spy on their Russian opponents

for the 2018 World Cup.

My name's Christopher, known as
Chris, Steele to my friends.

I served in the British Embassy
in Russia,

it was the Soviet Union
when I started.

And it was a tumultuous time.

And I think those of us who served
there never forgot what had happened

and the lessons we had learnt.

At the beginning, the Russian bid
doesn't seem to have had

much interest from Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin is not a football fan

compared with, for example, his
passion involved in, say, ice hockey

But of course,
eventually Putin realised

that this was a prestige project
for Russia,

that it required winning at all
costs for political reasons.

Football is pretty popular
in Russia

and it would have not gone down well
with the man on the street

if they had failed to win
this tournament.

When he realised that Russia wasn't
actually doing very well,

he called in some of his oligarchs
and demanded

that they started to work
for the bid.

Modern Russia's default mode is to
engage in corruption

and underhand dealings
and breaking the rules.

And it's the only way
they really achieve very much.

We had produced intelligence that
one of the European ExCo members

had been offered a valuable painting
from the Hermitage.

And seemed to have accepted it.

He admitted it, but said,
"Oh, it's a painting of no value.

I put it upstairs in my attic."

The US bid committee was, like,
handing out free pens to FIFA voters.

And the England bit got into
all kinds of trouble

for buying designer
Mulberry handbags for the wives

of all of the FIFA Executive
Committee members.

But what the Qataris and Russians
were doing

was corruption
on an industrial scale.

There was no way that other countries
were gonna be able to compete.

It's a competition between states,

so the whole state apparatus is
devoted to securing the World Cup.

There was intelligence that there
had been a dialogue going on

between Russia and Qatar,
not natural bedfellows.

But at the end of the day,
both have strong energy interests,

both have interests
in the Middle East.

And that opened up the potential for
there to be some kind of trade-off.

Sources on the England team had
gathered intelligence
about a vote swap,

which the Russian team
had allegedly done with Qatar.

"If you get your voters to back my
bid, I'll get mine to back your bid."

And this whole thing had been sewn up
around a big bi-lateral oil deal

in which Qatar agreed to invest
billions and billions of dollars

in developing the oilfields
of the Yamal Peninsula.

It's an incredibly difficult place
to prospect for oil

but it's incredibly rich
in its supply.

And so it was in both countries'
interests.

What we could then see in our own
documents was that bin Hammam

played a key role
in brokering those meetings.

He had hosted the Russian bid team
and the Russian Energy Minister

on a trip to Doha at which this deal
was allegedly discussed.

The Yamal Peninsula deal
I think says it all.

This is how the operation
was conducted

and the sort of assets that Russia
and Qatar brought to bear.

The World Cup's bound up
with the sort of unseen way

in which the world really works.

Unseemly, I would say, and unseen.

There was a lot of negative
attention being focused on Russia

as they were annexing Crimea
and committing atrocities

that many people would look at
and say, "This is unacceptable."

The focus on Russia, on Putin,

on any of the people that are
involved in doing those things,

is shifted when you then
turn on the lights

around a giant event
like a World Cup.

If you can host a tournament,

it's a glue that sort of
increases the popularity

of unstable authoritarian
governments.

And I think that was part of
this equation and still is.

A World Cup does not produce money
for the country.

The country has to expend
a lot of money for the World Cup.

The economy naturally will take
some money by tourists and so on

but it is not an economic matter.

It's a prestigious matter.

Qatar is actually quite an isolated
country in the Middle East.

It has significant Sunni enemies
around it like Saudi and the UAE.

And therefore if Qatar can become
the first Middle East country

to host a major sports event
like this,

then that does solidify the regime
and its stability,

I think, significantly,

both in the region
and in the wider world.

Michel Platini, the former
French footballing superstar

and FIFA Executive Committee member,

had previously pledged his support
to the American bid.

But he came under increasing pressure
from Nicolas Sarkozy,

the then French President,
to switch his support to Qatar.

That was because Sarkozy was eyeing
a number of major deals with Qatar.

He was keen that Qatar buy up
and bail out

his favourite football team,
Paris St Germain,

which was haemorrhaging money
financially.

And a big deal by which
Qatar Airways would buy up

50 planes from Airbus,
the French company.

And one week before the decision,

I got a phone call
from Michel Platini.

And he told me,
"Something has happened.

Now you will be in difficulties."

He was the President of UEFA
at that time

and he told me that he was asked

that his group should vote
for Qatar.

And four votes, they go to Qatar.

Then it was impossible
for US to win.

Platini lost courage.

He should have said
to the President, "No.

We go to do something for the world
and not only for one country."

Football was being used
as a bargaining chip

in these huge international deals.

Another way of looking at it is that
these huge international trade deals

were actually the bargaining chip
being traded around in world football
in exchange for World Cup votes.

The winner...

to organise the 2022 FIFA World Cup
is...

Qatar!

It was the biggest accomplishment of
the history of Qatar, in my opinion.

It was a super accomplishment
for bin Hammam.

Everybody in Qatar knows
what Mohamed bin Hammam

has done for football and
for the FIFA World Cup.

Bin Hammam was an absolute hero.

He was kind of almost a god in his
own country for the work he did.

How do you feel about that
particular coup that was pulled off?

I'm very proud, not only because the
World Cup is going to be in Qatar.

Qatar in this case
also are representing

all the small nations
and all small countries.

This is my biggest defeat
I have ever witnessed.

Bin Hammam's victory
took Blatter by surprise.

When bin Hammam did it by securing
such widespread support

across the continent of Africa
in particular,

which is really the heartland of
Blatter's own base,

that was a real threat to Blatter.

He knew bin Hammam had long
harboured ambitions

to go for the FIFA Presidency.

And very soon after
the World Cup decision,

he started manoeuvring against
bin Hammam in pretty overt ways.

Blatter came out
and announced unilaterally

that he was instituting
a new anti-corruption committee

to oversee FIFA,
to look at the World Cup bids.

Now we have these independent bodies

and we have to follow what
they are going to find out.

The next thing Blatter did
was to declare

that he thought it may be impossible
to play the tournament in Qatar
in the summer.

If something happened,
the FIFA Executive Committee

can change the venue
of the World Cup,

can take away the rights
to organise the World Cup.

Everything, we can do.

It became clear to bin Hammam that
to protect Qatar's World Cup bid,

he needed to be the man
in charge of world football.

And so that was really
what spurred him

to launch his own campaign
for the FIFA presidency in 2011.

Mohamed bin Hammam, although
once a close ally of Blatter,

is now calling for change.

This actually may be one of
the weaknesses of FIFA today.

He's been there too long?
Too long. 13 years as a president.

Let us open the window
for fresh air to come.

Meanwhile,
Phaedra Almajid came to us

and made allegations
about the Qataris.

I write notes to myself, basically.

Like a diary, I guess.

These were some of the notes
I took on the night in Angola

where I witnessed a bribe.

I remember needing to share it
with someone, just the shock of it.

I never planned to be
the whistle-blower.

Parliament was looking into
England's failed bid.

As a result of that,
they did a call for evidence.

And so we submitted all the evidence
that we had picked up

from the six consultants
and from the two FIFA ExCo members.

We also included some of
the allegations from Phaedra.

I know what the repercussions can be
for any whistle-blower.

So I was very scared.

And I wanted to be anonymous.

The Sunday Times
hired a lawyer for me.

The lawyer contacted FIFA

and said, "All right,
she's willing to give evidence."

We have asked for evidence

and this famous whistle-blower
will be in FIFA on Wednesday.

They will tell us
if there is something or not.

He mentioned the exact day and time

I would be walking through
the FIFA doors.

I mean, you say that,

of course every media member
is going to be there.

And I just watched this, I was,
like, "Oh, no, I'm not.

I'm not flying to Zurich any time
soon when you've just announced it."

What he did was very,
very purposeful.

FIFA's not corrupt. Definitely not.

I think that Sepp Blatter
is a diabolic genius.

She was there in Angola.

And has she given evidence or not?

Has she evidence?

I don't know. I don't know.

There was hacking into my G-mail
accounts, into my Facebook.

I started getting threatening emails
about my children.

So I was very scared.

I'm a single mom.

This is the richest sporting
organisation in the world

and the richest country in the world

and I know there were no limits.

Who did you think the threats
were coming from? The Qataris.

Definitely.

I needed it to stop.
I needed the threats to stop.

It was just the fear
for my children.

And so I told them,
"Look, I'll fix this.

I'll recant everything.

End of story. We'll move on."

You know, do I regret it? No.

I did what I had to do as a mother.

The one man many thought could beat
top football chief Sepp Blatter
withdraws.

Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar says
he won't stand for FIFA President.

Bin Hammam's decision
to drop out at the 11th hour

of the presidential race

was kind of a mystery
to his many supporters.

The prospect that he might defeat
Blatter in the election

was really the only leverage
he actually still held

to protect Qatar's World Cup bid.

But the answer to why bin Hammam
suddenly resigned

was disclosed to us when we received
a phone call from a source in Zurich.

It was someone who was very close
to Mohamed bin Hammam

and had been very close
to Sepp Blatter.

It explained to us that Mohamed bin
Hamman was invited to meet Blatter

at FIFA headquarters.

When he entered the office,
he found Blatter sitting there

with a very senior member
of the Qatari Royal Family

and was informed that a deal had been
done between Blatter and the Royal.

If Mohamed bin Hammam bowed out
gracefully from the FIFA presidential
race,

Blatter would ensure the Qatar
World Cup would come to no harm,

that the tournament would go ahead.

And if this story is correct,

and I have no reason to doubt
the words of Mohamed bin Hammam,

then they shook hands,
the deal was done.

It was he who had secured Blatter
his first victory in 1998

as FIFA President,
his re-election in 2002,

and who had pulled out all the stops

to achieve the seemingly
impossible feat

of winning the rights to host the
World Cup for his own Royal Family.

And to see these two figures uniting
against him was a devastating blow.

And worse still, he was told
that he was to retire home to Doha

and really never to speak publicly
about any of what had occurred.

He was silenced.

This was a really key moment
at which Blatter showed

the full extent of his power
as a kind of mob boss

at the top of the organisation,

who is able to cut deals
and use alliances

to end someone else's career
and secure his own fortunes.

Mohamed bin Hammam
says that you made a deal

to let the Qataris keep the Cup

in exchange for bin Hammam dropping
out of the presidential race.

Not at all. This is the first time
I heard about that.

But not at all.

And I wouldn't enter
into such an arrangement.

Definitely not.

Presidente Joseph Blatter.

Sepp Blatter has been re-elected.

Blatter won another four-year term
as head of soccer's governing body.

There is not one single doubt

that the World Cup 2022 will be
organised in Qatar.

I just remember what a very
prominent member of the Qatar
Organising Committee told me,

is that,
"We played the rules of FIFA."

You have to blame FIFA, not the
countries, neither Russia nor Qatar.

They had no choice.

If they want the World Cup,
they have to play the FIFA rules.

The FIFA rules are dirty, so where
is the problem? It's with FIFA.

We are honoured to win
in this tough and fair fight.

From bottom of my heart,

thank you.

It's incredible how easy
it was to go to Russia.

Have they paid?

But we come back to Qatar.

Do you think Qatar paid bribes
to win the World Cup?

You know, I don't know if they paid.

Because I have not seen.

But in football, to get the World
Cup, everything is possible.

Everything is possible.

Giving a World Cup
to a specific country

will always create a very heated
discussion of yes or no.

Because it is connected
with that game of football

that is so emotional to us.

Because it's so popular,
because it connects us all,

there will always be
politics part of it.

I would love a world
where sport was pure

and politics didn't come into play,
corruption didn't come into play.

Unfortunately, it's the reality.

FIFA's a business.

It's an institution but there are
people behind the institution.

And it's really important to
remember that people can be corrupt,

people can be bad,
people can make bad decisions.

And when that happens,
it can turn really ugly really fast.

The decision makers, most of them,

never played the game, never
felt the game like the fan is doing.

That is the issue that a lot of us
players, coaches have,

with those that run
the business side of things.

That kills you.

Sepp Blatter and the members
of his Executive Committee

really treated FIFA like
their own personal fiefdom.

They behave as though the game
belongs to them

and they can do with it whatever
they want to enrich themselves

and to further their own advantage.

And they do that without
really any regard

for the hundreds of millions of
people who genuinely love football

and actually care about the game.

There's a well known phrase in
The Beautiful Game.

The Beautiful Game
is the wonderful thing

of watching Pele or Johan Cruyff

or those great players
who played in the World Cups.

But this was the Ugly Game.

This was the football
administrators,

this was the corrupt deals
behind those football matches.

We were on a really tight deadline
trying to produce this story.

We knew that
for it to achieve maximum impact,

we needed to land this bombshell
right ahead of the 2014 World Cup,

which was taking place in Brazil
that year.

So we had to kind of draw a line
and then get it written.

And it was a lot of writing.

We were working really long hours.

It was kind of 16, 17, 18-hour days,
seven days a week.

The Sunday Times is going to devote
the first 11 pages to the story,

which, as our managing editor said,
is unheard of in peacetime.

We felt kind of daunted by the
magnitude of what we'd uncovered

and how explosive it was and
what the repercussions might be.

And when it broke, it went
around the world like a flash.

Mr bin Hammam.

It wasn't Brazil that was
making headlines today.

It was future hosts Qatar.

The story that Heidi and Jonathan
did shook world sport.

And it exposed just how corrupt
that process was.

For those running FIFA,
all the noise about Qatar
is the last thing they needed

as they prepare for a difficult
World Cup here in Brazil.

But the claims aren't going away.

Now they need to convince the world
they're treating them seriously.

We felt there was surely no way the
World Cup could go ahead in Qatar,

given what we had documented.

Mr President, are you worried about
more allegations of corruption?

It was pretty astonishing
the way Sepp Blatter

just totally ignored the evidence.

Sepp Blatter said the British
media's latest wave of allegations
about Qatar

was motivated by racism.

If corruption allegations against
Qatar's bid are proved,

should there be a revote?

For a start-
No, listen.

Let me answer. Let me answer.

I am not a prophet. That's all.

So we wait the results
and we will see what will happen.

There was a whitewash and basically
FIFA was doing what it always did,

which was to avoid engaging
with the corruption at its heart.

It was frustrating.
It was intensely frustrating.

We couldn't get FIFA
to take this thing seriously.

Sepp Blatter remained in place
as President of FIFA,

despite presiding over
this complete charade.

It felt like we'd failed
at forcing a change.

But what we didn't know was,

that all the time we'd thought
it was up to us,

the FBI were investigating,

and the whole FIFA house of cards
was about to come crashing down.

Until you have somebody
involved in the conspiracy

explain to you what is going on,

the case will not break open.

People said, "FIFA's like a mob
and gangsters and stuff."

But I never thought of Chuck
as that. But I guess he was.

We were opening up the tip
of a big old iceberg.

It is a monumental takedown.

This is the biggest sports bust
in history.

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