Blatter again points finger at Sarkozy over Qatar

Suspended FIFA president Sepp Blatter has again accused former French president Nicolas Sarkozy of influencing the awarding of the 2022 World Cup hosting rights to Qatar rather than the United States.

 Qatar controversially won the right to host the 2022 World Cup, a decision that has since sparked a series of corruption investigations surrounding FIFA and its officials.

 Speaking to Friday's edition of Britain's Financial Times, Blatter repeated the claims he made on Wednesday to Russian news agency TASS that FIFA's executive committee had originally agreed to award the 2018 tournament to Russia and the next World Cup to the US.

 Blatter told the FT that there had been a "gentleman's agreement" that the two World Cups in question would go to the "two superpowers" -- although Moscow denies there was any such arrangement.

 "It was behind the scenes. It was diplomatically arranged to go there," said Blatter, who has found himself at the centre of a FIFA corruption storm ever since being re-elected to a fifth term in May.

 However, as he stated on Wednesday, Blatter, who is set to stand down after February's FIFA presidential election, said Sarkozy's influence moved the goalposts -- something the French politician strongly denies.

 "Just one week before the election I got a telephone call from Platini and he said, 'I am no longer in your picture because I have been told by the head of state that we should consider ...  the situation of France'. And he told me that this will affect more than one vote because he had a group of voters," said Blatter.

 Platini, the suspended UEFA chief, admitted to voting for Qatar at the election in December 2010 when the World Cups were awarded to Russia and the tiny desert kingdom, but denied doing so on the orders of Sarkozy, who was French president from 2007-2012, despite the latter having not long beforehand invited him to dinner with the future Qatari emir, Tamim ben Hamad al Thani, then the prince of Qatar.