Dutch want Fifa to return World Cup bid cash

Sports minister Edith Schippers said on Wednesday she will work to have world football body Fifa refund money the Netherlands spent on its abortive bid to host the 2018 World Cup, if Dutch officials were misled about their chances.

The Dutch football association KNVB said earlier this week it would campaign to have the cash returned, after former Fifa boss Sepp Blatter said the joint Dutch-Belgian bid had no chance of succeeding.

Blatter said in an interview with broadcaster Nos that the dual candidacy ‘had no chance’. It was clear after the Japan and South Korean World Cup in 2002 that a dual campaign would never win and that the candidate countries were aware of this, he said.

‘Yes, they knew, because we had decided this after 2002. Never again a dual candidacy. Spain and Portugal were without a chance as well,’ Blatter said.

The Netherlands and Belgium invested some €11m in their attempt to stage the tournament.

Last November Blatter, while still Fifa president, said football’s world governing body agreed Russia would be hosts long before the completion of the bidding process. MPs then also called on Schippers to try to claw back the cash.