Michel D'Hooghe: 'It's totally untrue that my vote was influenced'

Evening Standard

6 Sep 2011

Michel D'Hooghe, for all his quarter of a century on the FIFA executive, has never courted publicity, unlike his soundbite-savvy president Sepp Blatter. But now the 66-year-old retired Belgian doctor, who has shaped FIFA's medical department and is proud of their doping controls, is upset about the slur on his reputation.

We are in Monaco and D'Hooghe, having just emerged from a swim at his hotel, wants to talk about a painting he received from the Russians before his fellow executive members chose them as hosts for the 2018 World Cup.

The implication by a Sunday newspaper was that this was yet another case of vote buying in a world body which seem to produce corruption scandals almost every day. Before the Belgian explains for the first time why the inference is false, he recounts a story of an earlier bid involving Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian Prime Minister in 2000, and Nelson Mandela.