Argentine football league denies report of payment

The president of the Argentine Football Association, Julio Grondona, on Saturday denied the association received a multimillion-dollar payment from Qatar to influence its vote for the 2022 World Cup host.

The denial followed a Wall Street Journal report Friday that cited an unnamed former member of the Qatar bid team as saying that at least one adviser had recommended that the Qatar Football Association make a 78.4 million dollar payment to help the Argentine association out of a financial crisis.

“There has to be an end to playing with my good name. Why on earth would the association have a debt of that size?” Grondona said in remarks carried on the Argentine newswire Telam.

“I am not going to give any credence to whatever people may say,” said Grondona. “The fact is the AFA has a solid contract with the Argentine government and it is all going quite well.”

Grondona spoke from Zurich where the 22-member executive committee of FIFA, the ruling body of the international federation of football associations, Thursday awarded Russia and Qatar the right to host the World Cup tournaments in 2018 and 2022 respectively.