Exclusive: Dirty Tricks Emerge in World Cup Campaign

A complaint about dirty tricks in the campaign to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup Finals is in the hands of the FIFA Ethics committee.

The complaint, which was received by FIFA on Saturday and has been seen by World Football Insider, cites "shocking and insulting allegations" against the Russia and Qatar bids which were made on a bogus website that resurfaced last week.

The rogue site, www.Qatar2022bidrevealed.com, contains two purported interviews with the British investigative journalist Andrew Jennings, which he says are a hoax. A similar version had previously appeared in February and was circulated among British sports journalists.

The interviews use Jennings as a mouthpiece to claim that Russia and Qatar have cut a deal, which allows Russia to host the 2018 finals in return for guaranteeing Qatar European support for 2022.

FIFA bid race rules prohibit vote trading.

The "interviews" also make lurid allegations about vote-buying and key members of the two bid teams, even alleging that Russia’s bid leaders are members of the FSB – the successor to the KGB.

There is also a reference to England 2018’s World Cup bid chairman David Triesman with anti-Semitic undertones.

Jennings tells WFI that the interviews are "entirely fake, fictitious, fabricated creation."

"Every word is invented," he said. "Of course I've never given these interviews. And the author is too unimaginative to incorporate things I have said or written elsewhere."

Jennings says he believes that the rogue site originates with a non-European bid.

FIFA rules strictly prohibit negative campaigning.

The website is registered in Panama and hosted in Russia. An IT expert tells WFI that such hoax sites are often hosted in Russia and China, where defamation laws are more lax. He added that the website’s creator clearly wanted to cover their tracks.

In March the head of FIFA’s ethics committee, Claudio Sulser, said that he would approach the bid race "with a transparent approach and with a clear application of the Code of Ethics in order to protect the integrity of football."

According to the bid race rules of conduct, those countries involved do so "with a transparent approach and with a clear application of the [FIFA] Code of Ethics in order to protect the integrity of football."

Should anyone connected with a bid team be found guilty of misrepresenting rivals in this manner, FIFA has the power to kick them out of the World Cup bid race.

It is understood that the Qatar 2022 bid leaders say they feel real disappointment and concern that dirty tricks are encroaching on the bid race.

They believe that this website, and what they see as the ludicrous claims contained within it, appear to be an example of foul play in the World Cup bid campaign. They are understood to see it as a very serious matter that will need to be investigated.

A source close to the Russian bid says they became aware of the website on Wednesday, but said that they had no wish to dignify anything patently bogus with a response.

One football industry insider described the website as "desperate attempt" to discredit two World Cup bids that are riding high, as well as a highly-regarded journalist.

Jennings, a well-known and maverick crusader against corruption in sport, has just celebrated the publication in Chinese of his expose of FIFA, Foul! It represents the fourteenth translation of his bestseller.

Written by James Corbett, james@worldfootballinsider.com