London - The secretary-general of the Supreme Committee for the 2022 World Cup, Hassan Thawadi said that Qatar did not do any wrong to have the honor of hosting the World Cup, describing the accusations against his country as "not concrete" and "a lot of prejudice."
Thwadi was speaking in an interview with the BBC and said, "the State of Qatar did not do any wrong doing at all."
The official, who served as Executive Director of Qatar's bid, which beat out his American counterpart, with 13 votes to 8 votes last December, strongly rejected accusations against his country and described it as "not concrete and not based on any basis as it has a lot of prejudice and was blown out of proportions."
Thawadi asked, "Why this focus on Qatar? The attack on 2022 fits the prejudice people have in their minds. An Arab nation could not have won."
Asked if Qatar was bribing some members of FIFA to win the vote, his answer was "Frankly No. We did not break any rule."
Thawadi said the call for a review in the decision to grant Qatar the right to host the 2022 World Cup is a "shameful act," stressing that "If there is evidence, investigate the evidence, but if there is nothing there and it's based on rumours."
"We will not lie, our bid budget was significantly higher than any of the other bids, yes," Al Thawadi said.
"Our campaign had to use whatever advantages it could have towards coming out and being considered a credible campaign."
He concluded, "Yes, you can not hide the point that the strongest point we have are our resources"
Qatar, which has an area of 11,400 square kilometers is the smallest country in the world to organize the World Cup. It has huge reserves of gas and occupies third place among oil-producing countries.
The country has allocated 100 billion dollars for infrastructure development in the hope of promoting itself as a tourist destination.
Qatar has had great experience in organizing sports events of quality. It has organized the World Youth Cup in 1995 and one of the best Asian Games in history in 2006 as well as many international tournaments like the Masters women's tennis, and one of the stages of the World Championship for motorcycles, and the World Championships of Athletics in the hall last March.
Qatar also hosted the Asian Cup football earlier this year and will host the Arab Games later this year as well.
Follow us on our social media channels:
@ILQlive
@ILQlive
@ILoveQtr
ILoveQatar
