Scrutiny of Qatar increased this week when France Football magazine, FIFA's commercial partner in the annual Ballon d'Or player awards, made further claims about the bid's spending and tactics in 2009-10 under the headline “Qatarclysme.”
The magazine revealed that FIFA ethics prosecutor Michael Garcia plans to visit all nine bidders in the 2018-2022 hosting contests to investigate allegations of wrongdoing. Russia won the 2018 hosting rights.
“As far as I'm aware, no, so far he has not been in touch,” al-Thawadi said of Garcia's probe, adding he was “absolutely not” concerned where it could lead.
“Provided that the review and the look into this matter is done on a fair, equitable basis, with the principles of rule of law being adhered to, then there's no concern,” he said.
Al-Thawadi dismissed speculation about how Qatar won the contest—defeating the United States, Australia, Japan and South Korea—as conspiracy theories.
“I think what we're going to see is a picture of the grassy knoll in the JFK assassination and instead of it being smoke they're going to say it's the Qatari headdress and it's us,” al-Thawadi said. “It proves the need for the Middle East to host a World Cup. It proves the need for us to actually be able to break down stereotypes.”
Stressing Qatar's plan to link a summer World Cup with humanitarian projects, al-Thawadi said air-cooling technology being developed for stadiums and team training sites could be used in greenhouses to improve food production.
“We are confident of our position, we are confident of what we have done, we're confident of our promises, we're confident of our ability to deliver promises,” he said.
