BLJ boasted to the Qatari bid team of its ability to promote negative aspects of rival bids in the media.GETTY IMAGES
The public relations exec at the center of allegations that Qatar "engaged in a dirty tricks campaign against rival bidders" to host the World Cup "previously helped to burnish the image of the Assad regime in Syria," according to Ziegler & Malvern of the LONDON TIMES. Michael Holtzman, the president of N.Y.-based PR consultancy BLJ Worldwide, "was officially employed" by the Office of the First Lady of the Syrian Arab Republic in '10. BLJ facilitated an interview for Vogue that the magazine "has since deleted from its website." Holtzman, who was paid $5,000 a month to help arrange the "fawning interview" with Asma Assad, was named as the sender of an email to a senior adviser to the Qatari bid team. The email outlined his company’s "successes in recruiting academics" and journalists in the U.S. and Australia "to promote negative aspects of their respective bids in the media." The smear campaign "appears to be against" FIFA's rules. Senior figures at FIFA said that they were "concerned by the allegations" but that they were "too little and too late" to justify moving the tournament. Holtzman, once named "PR person of the year" by PRWeek magazine, sent an email entitled "Strategy" from the N.Y. office of BLJ, formerly Brown Lloyd Jones, to Ahmad Nimeh, "who advised the team responsible for Qatar's bid." One senior FIFA figure, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that there would be "extreme reluctance to move the tournament at this point," adding, "There is no real appetite to move it now -- it is too far down the line." Another figure, a member of FIFA's ruling council, added that any attempt to move the tournament could leave the organization in a "costly and damaging legal battle with Qatar, which has denied all the allegations" (LONDON TIMES, 7/30).
TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE: In Sydney, Emma Kemp reported former Australian World Cup "bid team member-turned-whistleblower" Bonita Mersiades called on FIFA to "urgently investigate new corruption allegations into Qatar's 2022 bid." Former Socceroo Robbie Slater said that "there's no reason Australia couldn't" have a "second crack at hosting the showpiece tournament," but joined the "global chorus of doubt over Qatar ever being stripped of the right it so controversially won eight years ago." Mersiades, who was head of corporate affairs at Football Federation Australia and a member of the Australian bid’s senior management team until she was "sacked for questioning the governing body’s processes," called on FIFA to reopen investigations. Even if given a chance, "local commentators were divided over whether Australia would have the time, resources, existing infrastructure and government and public support to host." Slater: "We weren't even second -- we got one vote. It's all hypothetical but could we do it? There's no reason why we couldn't. Would the government support it? I don’t know." Fox Sports commentator Andy Harper said that the revelations published by the London Times could "light the fuse" for further investigations. But he held "significant doubts over whether Australia could hustle in time" for '22. Harper: "I think that horse has probably bolted, unfortunately. I still love the idea of a World Cup in Australia but I would find it hard that governments could line up funding packages to get it done" (DAILY TELEGRAPH, 7/29).
