DIEZ, Germany (AP) —
Qatar paid more than $10 million to a company staffed by former CIA operatives in an attempt to silence criticism from the head of German soccer against the wealthy Arab nation’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.
The multi-year covert influence operation, codenamed “Project Riverbed,” targeted Theo Zwanziger, a former FIFA executive committee member and president of the German soccer federation who was an outspoken critic of the 2010 decision to award the planet’s most popular sports tournament to Qatar, according to internal company records reviewed by the AP.
“It’s a very, very strange feeling when you’re involved in sport and committed to the values of sport, to be followed and influenced,” Zwanziger told the AP in an interview last week.
The Qatar World Cup, scheduled to start in November, has long been dogged by allegations of corruption and wrongdoing. U.S. prosecutors said in 2020 that bribes were paid to FIFA executive committee members to gain their votes. Qatar has denied any wrongdoing.
Documents reviewed by AP provide new details about Qatar’s efforts to win and hold onto the tournament, specifically the country’s work with former CIA officer Kevin Chalker and his company, Global Risk Advisors. The documents build on AP’s previous reporting about Chalker’s work for Qatar.
Qatari officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Chalker acknowledged in a statement that GRA did work on a Project Riverbed, but said it was only “a media monitoring project staffed by interns and supervised by one full-time employee, who were responsible for reading and summarizing news articles.”