By Chris Wright
In an interview with German press agency DPA, Argentinian FIFA ExCo member Julio Grandona started by pissing and whining about the relentless attacks on ‘the FIFA family’ by the English media, denied being glad-handed by the Qatar 2022 team in return for his vote and then went on to implicate himself in perhaps the largest-scale bribe ever to have taken place within the governing body’s corridors of power:
“Yes, I voted for Qatar, because a vote for the US (who were beaten by Qatar in the race to host the 2022 finals) would be like a vote for England – and that is not possible.”
After declaring the English to be ‘pirates’, he then recalled the meeting he held with the 2018 bid team in which he asked for one small-ish favour in return for his vote:
“With the English bid I said: Let us be brief. If you give back the Falkland Islands, which belong to Argentina, you will get my vote. They then became sad and left.”
The moral of this tale? If you’re going to fish for bribes, go big – because you never know…
I feel a new FIFA motto coming on.