Former Brazil international Zico has rubbished Qatar s prospective World Cup, claiming the event should not be held in a country that doesn t have football .
Qatar infamously won the right to host the 2022 World Cup in 2010, with widespread claims of corruption surrounding the country s bid.
Global frustration with Qatar s tarnished victory and ongoing stories of construction workers losing their lives in the process of building World Cup stadiums in the Middle Eastern kingdom provided a platform for Prince Ali bin Hussein to challenge Sepp Blatter for the FIFA presidency last week.
Zico is similarly unimpressed with Qatar s mandate to host the World Cup, with the mass arrests amongst FIFA s elite prompting the FC Goa coach to call for a new bidding process for the next two World Cups.
With respect to Qatar as a country that wants to grow, you can t have a World Cup in a country that doesn t have football, Zico said. You cannot change the fact that all of the world is used to seeing a World Cup for one single country. Why does this country have that strength?
I worked there [Qatar] when I was Iraq s head coach. They don t have 1,000 people at their stadiums. There are matches where not even the players families go.
With the United States Department of Justice s investigation into FIFA – which threw last week s FIFA Congress into turmoil and has prompted Blatter to announce his resignation as president – casting severe doubt on Russia s bid for the 2018 World Cup and Qatar s for 2022, Zico believes those events cannot go ahead.
If the irregularities are proven that there was buying of votes for this nomination, I think that, no matter who did it, we should stop and start over again, make a different kind of election, he said. We have time. We have here different countries, England is one of them with infrastructure to hold a World Cup.
This happened already 1986, if I remember correctly as Colombia failed and Mexico was there and made a great World Cup.
Zico has claimed he could lead FIFA but insists he will only stand for election as president if the rules of the game change .
