The United States should host the 2022 World Cup if Qatar is stripped of the tournament, a FIFA presidential candidate said Tuesday, citing the International Olympic Committee's legal precedent in awarding medals.
Speaking on French radio RTL (via ESPNFC.com), Jerome Champagne said, "It should not be a revote but apply the IOC's legal precedent, giving the gold medal to the silver medalist," adding, however, that "[t]he presumption of innocence must also go to the Qataris."
Qatar, one of five countries competing for the 2022 World Cup, won the vote of FIFA executive committee members in December 2010, defeating the runner-up U.S. in the last round of voting, 14-8.
Switzerland's attorney general is investigating the 2018 and '22 bidding over suspected money laundering on top of U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors' wider probe of corruption within FIFA business, including World Cup bidding.
Champagne, forced out of as FIFA's international relations director months before the hosting votes in 2010, is one of five candidates standing for election Feb. 26 to succeed suspended FIFA president Sepp Blatter, Champagne's embattled former boss.
Blatter told Russian media in 2015 that there was a backroom deal to give the 2022 World Cup to the United States before voting took place, but that the agreement was broken in favor of Qatar after high-level interference from, among others, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and UEFA president Michel Platini, who was suspended with Blatter over charges of corruption.
The U.S. hosted the 1994 World Cup in nine cities across the country.
