Qatar World Cup Bid Team Accused of Running ‘Black Operations’ to Undermine Rivals

Qatar World Cup Bid Team Accused of Running ‘Black Operations’ to Undermine Rivals
FIFA president Joseph Blatter (R) after Qatar was chosen to host the 2022 World Cup at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich on Dec. 2, 2010. Karim Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images
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The Qatar 2022 World Cup bid team ran a secret operation to undermine its competitors, a British newspaper has reported. If such allegations are true, it would be a breach of FIFA’s bidding rules.

The UK’s Sunday Times says that leaked emails from a whistleblower show that Qatar’s bid team hired a U.S. PR firm and former CIA agents to smear its main rivals, the United States and Australia.