MOSCOW (Sputnik) — FIFA’s Ethics Committee Adjudicatory Chamber banned Blatter, as well as vice president and European football chief Michel Platini, for eight years on Monday.
"Since I’ve been at FIFA, the World Cup has always been allocated on the recommendation — if not more — of governments," Blatter told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
He added that Platini decided to support Qatar’s bid to host the 2022 World Cup following a lunch at the Elysee Palace in 2010 with then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy and a member of the Qatari royal family, during which the politician is alleged to have directly instructed Platini to vote for Qatar in light of the countries' shared interest in the aerospace industry.
Qatar was chosen from among the United States, Japan, South Korea and Australia to host the World Cup 2022 after four rounds of voting in December 2010.
On Monday, Blatter said that the FIFA corruption scandal could have been avoided if the 2022 world championship had been awarded to the United States instead of Qatar.
