2022 FIFA World Cup to host the event. A FIFA internal investigation and report cleared Qatar of any wrongdoing, but the chief investigator Michael J. Garcia has since described FIFA's report on his inquiry as "materially incomplete and erroneous". On 27 May 2015, Swiss federal prosecutors opened an investigation into corruption and money laundering related to the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. On 6 August 2018, former FIFA president Sepp Blatter claimed that Qatar had used "black ops", suggesting that the bid committee had cheated to win the hosting rights. Qatar has faced strong criticism due to the treatment of foreign
2015 FIFA corruption case account. FIFA commissioned former United States Attorney Michael J. Garcia to investigate and report on the bidding processes behind the awarding of the 2018 FIFA World Cup to Russia and the 2022 FIFA World Cup to Qatar. In November 2014, FIFA made a copy of Garcia's report available to the Attorney General of Switzerland, who then stated that there were "grounds for suspicion that, in isolated cases, international transfers of assets with connections to Switzerland took place which merit examination by the criminal prosecution authorities". Sepp Blatter had been president of FIFA since 1998 (until his removal in December 2015).