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World Cup

FIFA investigates vote selling allegations

Senior officials accused of offering to sell their votes for the 2018 World Cup host.

FIFA HAS LAUNCHED AN INVESTIGATION into allegations that two of its senior officials offered to sell their votes in the contest for the host of the 2018 World Cup.

The Sunday Times reports this morning that one official was caught on camera agreeing to sell his vote to an undercover reporter for around €570,000.

A second FIFA official allegedly requested over €1.7m for a sports academy in return for his vote. The newspaper says it spoke to six current and former FIFA officials who “offered to work as fixers for the World Cup bid”.

The journalists were posing as supports of the US bid for the tournament. Selling votes is against FIFA’s rules.

FIFA said it has requested access to the Sunday Times’ information and will investigate the allegations. The soccer body added: “FIFA and the FIFA Ethics Committee have closely monitored the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups and will continue to do so”.

FIFA’s Executive Committee is due to meet in Switzerland at the end of the month to discuss the final voting process for the 2018 and 2022 hosts.

On Friday, the US bid committee announced it was withdrawing from the push for the 2018 competition in order to focus on its campaign for the the 2022 World Cup. The group said: “We are confident this is in the best interests of the USA Bid”.

The final bidders for the 2018 event are England, Russia, Belgium/Netherlands, and Spain/Portugal, the BBC reports.