Sepp Blatter in Qatar u-turn

Sepp Blatter has ruled out any possibility that Qatar could co-host the 2022 World Cup finals with neighbouring Gulf countries.

It was only last week that Blatter raised the prospect of the tournament being shared among Qatar’s neighbours, with Iran in particular deemed a possible co-host.

However, after after meeting the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and presumably being informed to keep his more outlandish thoughts to himself, Blatter insists that the 2022 finals will be hosted solely by Qatar.

“The decision of the FIFA is to play in one country and that will be in Qatar,” Blatter said. “I was just touring a little bit here, I was in Iran and I was in United Arab Emirates and it came up, the question came up, ‘Can we share the World Cup with Qatar?’ I just took the questions, but I did not answer.”

“I just want to tell you that when we took the decision for the World Cup 2002 when we played in two countries with difficulties, it was (South) Korea and Japan. We decided to never go in two countries, even less so to three, if one country is able to do so (stage the tournament).”