The press in the emirate of corruption: Qatar’s Al-Sharq newspaper invites world to forget 2022 World Cup bribes

Shaima Yahya

As usual, the Doha regime used its media arms to attack its opponents. This time, Qatar’s media tried to direct the international media that exposed more of its scandals, away from addressing the bribery scandal committed by Qatar, in order to gain the honor of organizing the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The American prosecution in Brooklyn opened it again.

Diagonal bragging

In public, the Qatari newspaper Al-Sharq called, in its editorial, on Sunday 12 April 2020, to ignore this scandal, citing that it is better for the world today to be preoccupied with the crisis of the coronavirus better than it ended and went.

An editorial in Al-Sharq newspaper said, “In the midst of the universe’s preoccupation with this virus, some well-known and habitual mouths that speak of hatred divert us towards things that have ended and been completely resolved, after ten years have passed since the Qatar file won by organizing the 2022 World Cup.”

“With the countdown continuing to host Qatar for this historical event for the first time in the history of the Middle East, there are still haters talking about their aspirations, that the organization of the tournament be withdrawn from Qatar, and in blatant bragging, the Qatari newspaper accused everyone who speaks of the fact of corruption witnessed by assigning the largest football tournament in the world to Qatar.”

An invitation to turn a blind eye

Continuing the language of bragging and Qatari arrogance to turn a blind eye to talking or open the World Cup files, the editorial of the Qatari “Al-Sharq”, said, “What does the world benefit now, talking about the 2022 World Cup ?!”.

It claimed that Qatar has always adopted transparency in this matter and until what happened recently last week, from submitting some of the prosecution files, the response came strong, clear and transparent.

It added that the World Cup file came in accordance with the highest standards followed in the FIFA and World Cup tournaments, but those with sick souls, according to the newspaper’s description, do not know what to do.

This came despite leaked documents revealed in the British newspaper Sunday Times in March 2019, confirming that Qatar won the right to organize the tournament, after it secretly paid bribes estimated at nearly 880 million dollars to FIFA, which was headed by Joseph Blatter.