Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter says hosting the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is “a mistake”.
The comments which also indicated that US should have hosted the event is coming less than two weeks in to the mundial.
Blatter, who was cleared of fraud charges by a Swiss court earlier this year over financial misconduct allegations, said he never personally voted for Qatar to hold the mundial.
The former FIFA helmsman who held sway for years in an interview with Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger said “The choice of Qatar was a mistake,”.
“At the time, we actually agreed in the executive committee that Russia should get the 2018 World Cup and the USA that of 2022.
“It would have been a gesture of peace if the two long-standing political opponents had hosted the World Cup one after the other.
“[Qatar] is too small a country. Football and the World Cup are too big for that.”
I can only repeat: the award to Qatar was a mistake, and I was responsible for that as president at the time,” he said.
“Now that the World Cup is imminent, I’m glad that, with a few exceptions, no footballers are boycotting the World Cup. For me it is clear: Qatar is a mistake. The choice was bad”
Qatar, has among many other things faced criticism on human rights issues, labour violations and laws that criminalise same-sex marriage in the build up to the event which will host 32 National teams across the World.