Qatar’s World Cup organizers deny bribery allegations

Qatar's 2022 World Cup organizers have vehemently denied allegations carried in a British newspaper that the country bribed FIFA officials to gain the right to stage the soccer tournament.

The Qatar organizing committee issued a statement Sunday saying it "always upheld the highest standards of ethics and integrity in its successful bid," after claims in The Sunday Times that a Qatari official paid $5 million to FIFA members.

The newspaper said a "senior FIFA insider" provided "hundreds of millions of emails, accounts and other documents" detailing alleged payments from Mohamed bin Hammam to soccer officials.

A similar allegation against bin Hamman surfaced in the Daily Telegraph in March, which Qatar also denied, saying it followed the rules of the bidding process.

Bin Hammam was a member of FIFA's executive committee for 16 years, acting as a power broker until being expelled in 2012 for corruption during his time as the president of the Asian Football Confederation.

Qatar's committee said that bin Hammam "played no official or unofficial role in the bid committee."

Michael Garcia, the FIFA ethics prosecutor who is investigating the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contests, was scheduled to meet Qatari officials on Monday in Oman.

"We are cooperating fully with Mr. Garcia's ongoing investigation and remain totally confident that any objective inquiry will conclude we won the bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup fairly," the Qatari statement said.

Allegations of corruption are the latest battle for the organizing committee.

Last month FIFA president Sepp Blatter described the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar as a “mistake” because of its sweltering weather conditions in June and July, when the tournament is due to be played.

The international soccer body tried to mitigate any damage by the remark by clarifying that Blatter was referring simply to the weather conditions and not the host country.

The Gulf nation has come under international pressure to address poor working conditions and labor rights violations amid reports that hundreds of immigrant employees had died on construction projects.  

FIFA declined The Associated Press news agency's request for comment on the latest allegations Sunday, referring all inquiries to Garcia's law firm in New York.

Garcia and his investigating team have been traveling around the world meeting officials who worked for the nine candidates ahead of the December 2010 votes. Russia won the rights to the 2018 tournament.

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press