Qatar Bid Informant Claims She Lied

The Qatar 2022 whistleblower, who made a series of allegations of corruption involving FIFA executive committee members and Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid, has claimed she lied – because she wanted revenge on the team after losing her campaign job.

Phaedra Al Majid, a former international media officer for Qatar 2022, reportedly told the BBC that she fabricated the allegations, but did not expect the claims to go so far.

The claims were originally made anonymously to journalists, but later became the subject of an inquiry by the parliamentary select committee for culture, media and sport.

Al Majid said: ‘I was very upset after I left the bid and wanted to basically hurt the bid back’.

‘My intentions were to make a few headlines, I never expected that my lies would be carried on and discussed in parliament’.

Al Majid has now signed a legal affadavit retracting her allegations – that African Football Confederation president Issa Hayatou, Ivory Coast Fifa member Jacques Anomua and Nigeria’s suspended exco official Amos Adamu were paid $1.5m to vote for Qatar.

The former media officer added: ‘It just went too far. I never expected it to come to this point. There was never anything suspicious or any wrongdoing on Qatar’s part’.

‘I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I have hurt reputations of three members of the FIFA exco, I have hurt their reputation, and more importantly I have hurt my colleagues on the Qatar bid’.

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