2022 World Cup: FIFA Warned About Qatar Receiving Many Penalties

• Controversy is already afoot on and off the field regarding the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar
• World governing body FIFA is reported to have received a report detailing suspicious refereeing involving Qatar
• It states that the hosts have received a disproportionate amount of penalties in the friendly matches ahead of the tournament

FIFA has had to deal with a potentially embarrassing revelation ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

The world football governing body reportedly received an integrity alert suggesting that the host nation's football team had received “an unusually high number of penalties” in friendly matches ahead of the tournament. Most of them had not been broadcast or streamed.

According to Fox Sports, the report read:

“The integrity alert is understood to have warned FIFA of suggestions that a high number of spot-kicks were awarded to ensure that Qatar achieved positive results in the tournament build-up, although it adds that this claim cannot be verified.

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“FIFA’s integrity warning also notes that even their match monitoring partners have struggled to unearth data on the games in question.”

Qatar has played in 11 friendly fixtures in preparation for the tournament, winning five, drawing four and losing two of them.

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The build-up to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar has been less than spectacular, owing to the Middle East nation's deplorable human rights record interlaced with allegations of corruption.

As reported by Sports Brief, Qatar's decision to host the biggest sporting festival on the face of the earth has been described by critics as attempts by the oil-rich nation, to use football to cleanse its image on the international scene - best described as 'sports washing'.

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With just three days left for the start of the Mundial, another layer of allegations has been added to the already well-documented fractured state of Qatar.

According to Amjad Taha, the regional director of the British Middle East Center for Studies and Research with over 400,000 followers on Twitter, Qatar has bribed players of Ecuador ahead of the opening game.