{"id":2720,"date":"2015-06-10T05:47:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T13:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/amid-corruption-scandal-fifa-delays-bidding-on-2026-world-cup-2\/2720\/"},"modified":"2015-06-10T05:47:00","modified_gmt":"2015-06-10T13:47:00","slug":"amid-corruption-scandal-fifa-delays-bidding-on-2026-world-cup-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/amid-corruption-scandal-fifa-delays-bidding-on-2026-world-cup-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Amid Corruption Scandal, FIFA Delays Bidding On 2026 World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eyder Peralta<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

FIFA Secretary-General J\u00e9r\u00f4me Valcke (right) and FIFA President Joseph \"Sepp\" Blatter attend a news conference in 2014.<\/a><\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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FIFA Secretary-General J\u00e9r\u00f4me Valcke (right) and FIFA President Joseph “Sepp” Blatter attend a news conference in 2014. Victor Caivano\/AP<\/strong> hide caption<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

i<\/strong>toggle caption Victor Caivano\/AP<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Still reeling from a corruption scandal that has ensnared some of its top officials and led to the resignation of its president<\/a>, FIFA said it was delaying the bidding process on the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n

“Due to the situation, I think it’s nonsense to start any bidding process for the time being,” J\u00e9r\u00f4me Valcke, FIFA’s secretary general, said during a news conference on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

In a separate statement<\/a>, FIFA said the organization’s executive committee will discuss the process at a later date.<\/p>\n

The BBC reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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“The vote to decide who will host the 2026 World Cup is due to take place in Kuala Lumpur in May 2017.<\/p>\n

“The United States are front-runners<\/a> to stage the tournament, but Canada, Mexico and Colombia are also thought to be interested. Russia and Qatar were selected to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups by a secret ballot of Fifa’s 22 executive members in December 2010.<\/p>\n

“But Swiss prosecutors are now investigating alleged financial irregularities<\/a> surrounding the bidding process. Both Russia and Qatar have denied any wrongdoing.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Bloomberg reports<\/a> that during the news conference, Valcke was defensive. If you remember, Valcke was not named in the U.S. bribery investigation, but subsequent reporting linked him to a $10 million payment<\/a> that was allegedly part of a bribe to help South Africa secure the right to host the 2010 World Cup.<\/p>\n

Wednesday’s news conference was Valcke’s first since those reports surfaced, and he said he had done no wrong. Bloomberg adds:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

“The money involved came from South African authorities and not FIFA, and the transfer was in line with FIFA regulations, Valcke said.<\/p>\n

” ‘You have decided that after [Sepp] Blatter I am the head to be cut, fine, but don’t use this $10 million because I haven’t made any mistake with this,’ he said.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org\/content-only\/faq.php#publishers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source:: http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/thetwo-way\/2015\/06\/10\/413362874\/amid-corruption-scandal-fifa-delays-bidding-on-2026-world-cup?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=sports<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FIFA Secretary-General J\u00e9r\u00f4me Valcke (right) and FIFA President Joseph \"Sepp\" Blatter attend a news conference in 2014.<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n

FIFA Secretary-General J\u00e9r\u00f4me Valcke (right) and FIFA President Joseph “Sepp” Blatter attend a news conference in 2014. Victor Caivano\/AP<\/strong> hide caption<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

i<\/strong>toggle caption Victor Caivano\/AP<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Still reeling from a corruption scandal that has ensnared some of its top officials and led to the resignation of its president<\/a>, FIFA said it was delaying the bidding process on the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n

“Due to the situation, I think it’s nonsense to start any bidding process for the time being,” J\u00e9r\u00f4me Valcke, FIFA’s secretary general, said during a news conference on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

In a separate statement<\/a>, FIFA said the organization’s executive committee will discuss the process at a later date.<\/p>\n

The BBC reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

“The vote to decide who will host the 2026 World Cup is due to take place in Kuala Lumpur in May 2017.<\/p>\n

“The United States are front-runners<\/a> to stage the tournament, but Canada, Mexico and Colombia are also thought to be interested. Russia and Qatar were selected to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups by a secret ballot of Fifa’s 22 executive members in December 2010.<\/p>\n

“But Swiss prosecutors are now investigating alleged financial irregularities<\/a> surrounding the bidding process. Both Russia and Qatar have denied any wrongdoing.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Bloomberg reports<\/a> that during the news conference, Valcke was defensive. If you remember, Valcke was not named in the U.S. bribery investigation, but subsequent reporting linked him to a $10 million payment<\/a> that was allegedly part of a bribe to help South Africa secure the right to host the 2010 World Cup.<\/p>\n

Wednesday’s news conference was Valcke’s first since those reports surfaced, and he said he had done no wrong. Bloomberg adds:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

“The money involved came from South African authorities and not FIFA, and the transfer was in line with FIFA regulations, Valcke said.<\/p>\n

” ‘You have decided that after [Sepp] Blatter I am the head to be cut, fine, but don’t use this $10 million because I haven’t made any mistake with this,’ he said.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org\/content-only\/faq.php#publishers.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-recreation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}