Long arm of Qatar – Sport – Kommersant

A scandal flares up in world football, potentially capable of turning into a very high-profile story. We are talking about the alleged facts of surveillance of high-ranking officials of the International Football Federation (FIFA) and their entourage. The authorities of Qatar, where the World Cup starts on November 19, are called as the customer. The perpetrator was allegedly the American company Global Risk Advisors, created by former CIA operative Kevin Chalker. The purpose of the entire event, which cost, allegedly, $ 387 million, was to discredit supporters of depriving Qatar of the right to host the world championship. The Qatari authorities categorically deny the validity of the suspicions.

In world football, a detective story is unfolding, more suitable for some kind of spy movie. The Swiss broadcaster SRF performed with statement that the Qatari authorities have been spying on senior football officials, including FIFA, for many years in order to influence their decisions using illegally obtained confidential information. SRF refers to an alleged leak of documents created by the American company Global Risk Advisors, which is owned by former CIA operative Kevin Chalker. Note that the backbone of the company are former intelligence officers.

The document, called “The Ruthless Project”, makes recommendations to the Qatari authorities, and also provides a plan of action to ensure that the country’s right to host the World Cup is not revoked.

Recallthat Qatar won the 2022 championship in 2010 (then Russia was given the 2018 World Cup), and immediately FIFA faced suspicions about the purity of the passage of the Qatari candidacy through the executive committee of the organization. The issue was officially closed only in 2014, when FIFA ruled that the elections were fair and ruled out the possibility of a new vote.

However, according to the SRF, until then, the Qataris seriously feared for their project. In particular, they were worried about the impact that the president of the Australian Football Association (the Australians also claimed for the 2022 World Cup) could have on FIFA, billionaire Frank Loewy, the head of the German Football Association (DFB) Theo Zwanziger, the president of the US Football Federation Sunil Gulati and a specialist in relations with public Peter Hargitay. In the early 2000s, he worked as an adviser to FIFA President Sepp Blatter and was considered highly influential. Later, Mr. Hargitay joined the team promoting the Australian bid.

The document states that in reality the circle of persons who were being monitored was much wider. This is probably where the more than generous $387 million allegedly provided by Qatar to Global Risk Advisors comes from.

The leak, on which SRF builds its version of events, speaks almost of the intention to build a global spy network.

Its task is, firstly, to know in advance about all the steps of the opponents of the Qatari application, and secondly, to the extent possible, use the information stolen from the computers of the “supervised” to discredit them. By the way, Peter Hargitay actually turned to the Swiss authorities with a statement that they were trying to hack into his computer. But if so, then the attackers acted extremely primitively. They simply sent some letters to Peter Hargitay in the hope that he would follow the links in them and infect his computer. Plus, the hackers didn’t even bother to cover their tracks that lead to some Indian company, Appin Security. The latter has allegedly already been confirmed by an investigation conducted by the Swiss authorities. It is also alleged that agents of Global Risk Advisors listened in on the communications of many high-ranking football functionaries by placing listening devices in hotel rooms. Surveillance was also carried out for some journalists.

In favor of the SRF version, the fact that the FBI launched an investigation into Kevin Chalker, who is suspected of trying to influence US policy in the interests of a foreign state, may indirectly testify. This was reported by the agency at the end of October. AP. However, the FBI did not confirm the fact of the investigation, but they did not refute the information either.

Kevin Chalker himself categorically denies all suspicions. “Global Risk Advisors and Mr. Chalker do not know anything about the suspicions mentioned in your material. They are definitely not involved in illegal activities,” SRF said in Global Risk Advisors. In turn, the Qatari authorities drew attention to an important detail.

A Qatari government spokesperson told Insidethegames that “the claims are based on documents that have previously been rejected by a US court because they cannot be authenticated.” “We also know that many reputable publications received copies of this report, but chose not to publish any materials, having found inaccuracies in the document,” the press service of the Qatari government noted and added that the country’s authorities are considering the possibility of protecting their interests in the courts.

However, there are those who certainly believe the accusations. This is, in particular, the already mentioned Theo Zwanziger. He declared Insidethegamesthat a number of people really persuaded him to support Qatar, that his family was followed, that, of course, all this was done in the interests of Qatar. “But they underestimated me, I did not give up my convictions,” said Mr. Zwanziger. “As I said, the victory of Qatar in the elections became something akin to a cancerous tumor of football. Many who supported this bid are now in power and have damaged the game.” Theo Zwanziger believes that FIFA must thoroughly investigate what happened and punish those responsible. “The first to strive for this should be FIFA President Gianni Infantino. But he will not do this, since he is a vassal of Qatar,” said Mr. Zwanziger.

Alexander Petrov