Seven candidates in race to succeed Sepp Blatter — Federation Internationale de Football Association presidential elections

“And at a lunch afterwards with (UEFA chief) Michel Platini he said it would be good to go to Qatar”.

Blatter said: In 2010 we had a discussion of the World Cup and then we went to a double decision.

SEPP BLATTER has revealed there was an agreement in place for the 2018 World Cup to go to Russian Federation even before the vote took place.

Blatter’s claim prompted an angry response from the English FA chairman Greg Dyke, who said they would now investigate the possibility of recovering the £21 million spent on the failed bid – £2.5 million of it public money.

Dyke was giving evidence to the House of Commons’ Media, Sport and Culture Select Committee on Wednesday in relation to the crisis at Federation Internationale de Football Association.

“And they wanted to say, ‘We, ethics committee, we are not at the service of the president, we are totally independent.’ This is wrong”, Blatter said in the interview.

The other candidates are al-Hussein, Musa Bility, Jerome Champagne, Gianni Infantino, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa and Tokyo Sexwale.

Nakhid told AFP that he would appeal against the decision which he said was part of a “dirty tricks campaign”.

Platini, 60, did not stand in the 2011 election against Sepp Blatter, but was the clear favourite of the seven frontrunners to replace the disgraced president in the forthcoming election, before the scandal broke over the payment.

“Given that Michel Platini is now provisionally banned from taking part in any football-related activity, his candidature will not be processed by the ad-hoc electoral committee as long as such ban is valid and in force”, FIFA said in a statement.

“FIFA had the right, after five years, not to pay me, but they chose to respect what was a perfectly valid arrangement”.

“And now look where we are”.

Blatter repeated his contention that the USA multi-million-dollar investigation was a direct result of the United States missing out on the right to host the 2022 World Cup.

“Jose Maria Marin, former President of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) agreed on Tuesday to be extradited to the U.S.”, the Swiss authorities said.

Outgoing president Blatter, whose reign will formally end after the February elections to choose his successor, claimed that Spain and “some South American voters” had also agreed to collude with Qatar, who gained 14 votes to the eight claimed by the US in the bidding for the 2022 event.