Simon Johnson, community leader and sports consultant, was the COO of England’s failed 2018 World Cup bid. He has told Varsity that Qatar 2022 is now under added pressure following the resignation of Sepp Blatter, in his eyes a “politician” with whom you “could not be clear what he was doing or thinking”.

Johnson, now the Chief Executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, though unable to comment on matters surrounding the Garcia inquiry (FIFA’s internal investigation into the bidding processes of 2010) went on to say that it is “in everybody’s interest that the full report is published”, as well as saying that “politics got around” the selection process that resulted in England’s 2018 bid defeat.

When asked whether he believed the bids would be re-run, Johnson stated that there was a “zero percent chance that Russia 2018 will be reopened” as the preliminary draw for that World Cup is in six weeks’ time. This effectively means the tournament starts then, and that it would require a “seismic shift” for a re-run to take place.

On the other hand, Johnson believes Qatar is a slightly different matter. The awarding of the tournament to that state was in the first place contentious. There has been “huge controversy” over the treatment and deaths of migrant workers, not to mention the expected opposition from European leagues towards a winter tournament.

Now with Blatter’s recent resignation factored in, Johnson believes this has put “added pressure” on the Qatari organisers.

“Blatter I think was doing all he could to ensure that the World Cup would take place and if they have lost their champion within FIFA, then that may well cause a problem and lead to the reopening of that particular bid”.

However he does not believe England could take up the mantle of hosting the tournament in 2022, owing to FIFA’s rotation policy, which states that the tournament cannot be held in the same confederation twice in a row.

As a key figure in England’s 2018 World Cup bid, Johnson, who met Sepp Blatter many times during the bidding process in 2010, expressed his surprise at the FIFA stalwart’s decision to step-down.

“All of his behaviour from the moment of his election onwards suggested that he was going to tough this out, he was going to survive. He is the great survivor and he was giving all the signs that he was preparing to dig in and see off these allegations.”

But, from Johnson’s descriptions, it is clear that all is not always what it seems with the somewhat superficial figure.

“I would describe him as a politician. You couldn’t quite be clear what he was doing or thinking. One thing that struck me was that he used to smile a lot, but he would never smile with his eyes.

“It seemed to me that there was always something being plotted, something being planned.”

Blatter’s change of heart so soon after his re-election has been hailed as a watershed in some quarters, but Johnson believes that whether this will now lead to greater transparency in FIFA's administration depends much on his successor.

“You have to hope that Blatter stepping down will lead to better governance and transparency.

“If the next President is committed to governance and transparency he can lead from the front. Whereas I don’t think Blatter ever did. He dipped in and played around governance reform.”

The 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids have been a great source of controversy and have focused the spotlight increasingly on FIFA in recent years. Although he disagrees that corruption allegations would not have come to light should the tournaments have been awarded elsewhere, Johnson, when asked about whether he felt a sense of injustice at the way the bidding process panned out, certainly felt frustrated at “other factors” and “politics” that were at play.

“Russia is an absolutely fair and credible host of a World Cup – a football mad country, proper infrastructure.

“Where I felt that the process was corrupt was two-fold. Firstly England, by all accounts including the FIFA inspectors, was deemed to be the best bid and yet it was eliminated in the first round – politics got around there, there was no way that should have happened.

“The FIFA executive committee members were therefore making decisions on factors other than the strength of the bid”

The bidding nations were required to generate comprehensive bid-books - England’s for example was 1658 pages long, as well as having to undergo an inspection report and a commercial report. Yet these were widely ignored by the FIFA executive committee members, Johnson claims.

“They did not have to take into account one single page of a single one of those documents in making their decision.

“In other words, the executive committee members were free to make whatever decision they like based on whatever criteria was important to them. That’s the thing that frustrates me”

Those criteria, as Johnson pointed out, were not based on the quality of the bids nor the work they had generated.

“We generated bid-books for all of the members of the Executive committee. Only three of them asked if they could see the bid books.

“One was our representative, Geoff Thompson, because he wanted to receive all the other books and show them to us. One was the Japanese representative because he wanted to do the same thing for the Japan bid, which meant that only one of the non-aligned members called for the bid books.”

Further evidence for Johnson lies with the fact that the inspection published by FIFA, ranking bids as low, medium or high risk, listed Qatar as the only high risk option. But they were awarded the tournament anyway.

“They had all the information they needed to make an objective, transparent decision. If they’d chosen Russia as a result of that, taking into account all those factors, there would have been no argument. But it doesn’t seem to me that they did.

“It seemed that the executive committee members were able to take account of any factors that they felt were important whether that was honourable or not and make their decision. And that was the problem.

“The issue wasn’t that England hadn’t won, it was that non-bid related factors resulted in England being eliminated in the first round.”

Many questions remain over the bidding process for those tournaments, and FIFA’s own investigation into them has yet to be published in full. The Eckert 42-page summary report that was released, described by FA Chairman Greg Dyke as “a joke”, cleared Qatar of any wrongdoing whilst admonishing England.

When asked about allegations relating to the 2018 World Cup, all of which he said were covered in the Garcia report meaning he could not comment, Johnson highlighted the need for those findings to be published in full.

“The very fact that it hasn’t been published, so far, is clearly creating the types of questions you’ve just asked.

“So it’s obviously in everybody’s interest that the full report is published. And I would hope some of the questions are indeed answered”

It remains to be seen whether or not we eventually find out the truth about any corrupt activities that went on during the bidding processes for 2018 and 2022. Nonetheless, with Blatter’s resignation and continuing investigations by the American and Swiss authorities, more revelations look likely, as does the release of Garcia’s findings in full.

@peterrutzler19