In the wake of Australia's shock first round elimination from the 2022 FIFA World Cup voting, Football Federation Australia's bid consultant Peter Hargitay claimed Australia was lied to by members of the FIFA Executive Committee
Speaking one-on-one with Les Murray, Hargitay says Australia was promised six votes by the FIFA Executive Committee, yet walked away with just one.
“Before we went into the voting, we had six votes that we were assured of,” says Hargitay.
“We needed at least five to survive the first round. We always knew that the first round was going to be the crucial round.
"Of the six votes, we had one left and that one vote was claimed by two people, so you tell me what is honesty.”
When asked why he thought members of the committee would vote for Qatar instead of Australia, Hargitay was frank.
“You go figure it out. What do you think? What do you think motivates people, 14 of them, to vote for a country the population of Zurich, to vote for a country that is the size of Fiji, to vote for a country where the infrastructure to play host to millions of fans still has to be created."
"You go figure, how can 14 men make that decision?"
“The most fundamental mistake Australia made, and there can be no other way, is that we played it clean,” said Hargitay.
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