US prosecutors say three Fifa officials took bribes during votingQatar supreme committee denies any allegations of wrongdoingThe 2022
World Cup is highly unlikely to be moved from Qatar despite the latest criminal indictment by the US Department of Justice accusing three senior Fifa officials of receiving bribes for voting in favour of the Gulf state hosting the tournament.
The indictment, the latest in the long-running US prosecution of football officials for alleged corruption, accuses Nicolás Leoz, the Paraguayan then president of Conmebol, South
American football’s governing body, and the former
Brazil federation president Ricardo Teixeira of being paid bribes to vote for Qatar at the decisive Fifa executive committee (exco) meeting in December 2010. A third then very senior member of the exco under the former president Sepp Blatter, who is not named but is identifiable as Julio Grondona, the then president of Argentina’s FA, is also accused of being paid to vote for Qatar, but Grondona, who died in 2014, was never criminally charged.