Qatar World Cup bid inspector gets seven-year FIFA ban
Harold Mayne-Nicholls, former chairman of the Bid Evaluation Group for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups, is barred from taking part in football-related activity
FIFA’s ethics committee has issued a decree banning the former chairman of the Bid Evaluation Group for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups for a period of seven years, it has announced.
Harold Mayne-Nicholls, also an ex-Chilean Football Association president, has been barred from taking part in any kind of football-related activity at the national and international levels. The decision was made at a hearing in his presence, along with the chairman of the investigatory chamber of the Ethics Committee, Dr Cornel Borbély.
In his role as chairman of the Bid Evaluation Group, Mayne-Nicholls had ranked Qatar as the only ‘high-risk’ option of the nine bidders for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. He was reportedly being investigated over an email exchange with the head of Qatar’s Aspire Academy.
During the bidding process, Mayne-Nicholls allegedly asked if his sons might be able to train there at his expense. He also inquired about opportunities for his brother-in-law, a tennis coach, The Guardian reported. It was believed that nothing had come of this exchange.
Following the controversial publication of a summary of an investigative report by Michael Garcia, Mayne-Nicholls was one of five football officials who had cases opened against them. Garcia subsequently resigned in protest at the way the 430-page report was summarised.
The remaining cases are against Spain’s FIFA vice-president, Ángel Mariá Villar Llona, Thailand’s Worawi Makudi, and Franz Beckenbauer, who has retired from FIFA.
Mayne-Nichollas had previously expressed his shock at being investigated, given his critical stance of Qatar’s suitability in his final report, and that nothing came of his email exchange with Aspire.
“For me it’s really strange that [the ethics committee] are losing energy, money and time over such an investigation but those are the rules and I have to follow them,” he said in comments published in 2014.
