It's a sport that's enjoyed from the barrios and beaches of Brazil to the air-conditioned

stadiums of Qatar. Our love of football crosses continents and bridges boundaries to

bring us together and that's never more obvious than during the World Cup.

So how does such a simple game where people kick a ball and have fun, end up in corruption,

tax evasion and money laundering and a scandal that will shake the walls of the sports governing

body and bring down its leader? FIFA in deep trouble as senior officials are accused of rampant

corruption. Flatters remaining time as FIFA president can no longer be measured in years.

FIFA in crisis seven senior officials have been arrested in dawn raids and luxury hotel

in Switzerland. I'm Alex Capstig and for the past 25 years I've been lucky enough to

travel the globe and cover some of the most important sport stories for BBC World Service.

For the next hour I'll explore how a tiny country in the Middle East launched and won

their audacious bid to host the most lucrative single sport spectacle on the planet watched

by a global audience of billions.

The winner, the 22 FIFA World Cup is Qatar.

This is the story of how the men who were trusted to uphold football's traditions of fair play

could exploit their positions of power to create an uneven playing field for the bigger

sport in the world that would enrich themselves at the expense of those who have the least.

Our story starts in Africa back in 2010 when I was in the Angolan capital of Lawanda to

cover the Africa Cup of Nations. Angola's hosting Africa's top tournaments and the big

wigs who govern the game on this continent will meet before the final at the 2010 CAF annual

Congress. That's the confederation of African football's yearly jamboree. But they're not

the only visitors in town.

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