FIFA's granting of rights to Qatar to host the World Cup in 2022 is a focus of U.S. and Swiss probes into alleged corruption at football's governing body, but that "isn't stopping a group financed by the tiny nation from coming to Washington this week to talk about cleaning up sports," according to Rosenberg & Hosenball of REUTERS. The Doha-based Int'l Centre for Sport Security, which is largely funded by the Qatari government, will "talk about its efforts to boost transparency in bidding processes for major sporting events and combat financial malpractice in professional sport" at an event at the National Press Club on Wednesday. The group, which is "headed by two former officials from Qatar's military," includes FIFA's former head of security as an exec director and Interpol's former president as a member of its advisory board. ICSS spokesperson Stuart Hodge said that its budget is 70% "financed by the government of Qatar and the rest is income from projects." ICSS "couldn't immediately say how large that budget is." Critics said that the organization has a "public perception problem because of the investigations into the allegations" about how its main patron won enough support from FIFA's exec committee in '10 to get the 2022 hosting rights. It "faced competing bids from the U.S., South Korea, Japan and Australia." Anti-Corruption Expert and TRACE Int'l Founder Alexandra Wrage said, "There is no question that a Qatari entity faces some reputational challenges as it sets out to clean up sports." ICSS said that it is "independent." Hodge: "There is no external influence or input put on the ICSS from the government of Qatar in terms of how we are run and our activities." Both Russia and Qatar have "vehemently denied there was any wrongdoing in the way they won the World Cup hosting rights" (REUTERS, 6/23).
