Why Qatar spies spy on Fifa
Qatar has recruited a former CIA agent to spy on FIFA officials. All the details
Fifa also becomes the object of a real war between spies.
In fact, Qatar would have recruited a former CIA officer to spy on rival countries and FIFA officials according to an investigation by the Associated Press .
This investigation – typical of investigative journalism – reveals how Qatar sought an edge over countries like Australia and the United States that were also bidding for hosting rights, hiring former CIA private contractor Kevin Chalker founder of Global Risk Advisors.
Chalker has also worked for Qatar to keep an eye on Qatari critics in the world of football, according to interviews with former Chalker associates, as well as contracts, invoices, emails and a review of corporate documents.
The AP investigation shows that Qatar has overlooked nothing. Agents working for Chalker and the Persian Gulf Sheikh also searched the phone call logs of at least one senior FIFA official prior to the 2010 vote.
"The greatest achievement to date of the MERCILESS Project … has come from successful penetration operations targeting critics within the FIFA organization," said Chalker's company, Global Risk Advisors, in a 2014 paper, describing a project whose minimum proposed budget was $ 387 million over nine years. It is unclear how much the Qataris paid the company.
The company's documents also highlight the company's efforts to win over Jordanian prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein, a key figure in the world of football and who ran unsuccessfully for FIFA presidency in 2015 and 2016. In a 2013 document, Global Risk Advisors recommended Qataris give money to a football development organization run by Ali, saying it "would help solidify Qatar's reputation as a benevolent presence in world football."
Chalker, who opened an office in Doha and had a Qatari government email account, said in a statement provided by a representative that he and his companies would "never engage in illegal surveillance."
The AP went through hundreds of pages of documents from Chalker's clubs, including a project update report from 2013 that contained several photos of Chalker's staff meeting with various football officials. Multiple sources with authorized access have provided documents to the AP .
Qatari government officials did not respond to requests for comment. FIFA also declined to comment.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/spie-qatar-fifa/ on Sat, 27 Nov 2021 08:03:09 +0000.