Hargitay slams FIFA executives

Australian World Cup bid advisor Peter Hargitay has accused members of FIFA’s executive committee of lying about their vote.

Australia suffered a similar fate to England’s 2018 bid in their attempts to secure the hosting rights to the 2022 tournament.

Tipped as one of the favourites during the lead-in with an excellent technical report, Australia lost out to shock winners Qatar after being knocked out in the first round with just one vote

Hargitay, a controversial figure and former advisor to FIFA President Sepp Blatter, revealed that Australia were promised six votes by members of FIFA’s executive committee, only one of which transpired.

“Before we went into the voting, we had six votes that we were assured of,” Hargitay told SBS.

“After the vote we were told by two people they were the only ones who voted for us.”

“One of the two was fibbing. The other four or five who shook hands with the chairman and who were entirely and totally credible and reconfirmed their position before they went into the vote vanished.”

“The exact same thing happened to England and the US bid.”

It is believed that Cypriot Marios Lefkaritis and Turkey’s Senes Erzik may have been among the committee members to withdraw their support for the Australian bid at the last minute.

The two are also rumoured to have deserted the England camp in favour of Russia’s bid for the 2018 tournament.

Hargitay believes the Australian bid went down because they played by the rules.

“The most fundamental mistake we (Australia) made, and there can be no other way, is that we played it clean,” Hargitay said.

“It was obvious there was a grander plan from people that had different ideas about who should win.”

“There was a tactical vote to get us out. I couldn’t believe it and I didn’t see it coming.”

“You go figure it out. What do you think? What do you think motivates people, 14 of them, to vote for a country the population of Zurich, to vote for a country that is the size of Fiji, to vote for a country where the infrastructure to play host to millions of fans still has to be created … You go figure, how can 14 men make that decision?”