The 2022 World Cup should be held in Qatar only if the exploitation of migrant workers stops, FIFA presidential candidate Jerome Champagne told Reuters in an interview
The Frenchman said that FIFA's capability to govern the sport could be threatened by the continuing controversy over the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments and that "sanctity of the World Cup" was also at stake
He also repeated his call for FIFA ethics investigator Michael Garcia's report into the bidding process for the tournaments awarded to Russia and Qatar, to be published in full.
The findings were summarised in a 42-page statement published by FIFA ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert last week, which Garcia himself complained included misrepresentations. FIFA has said it cannot be publish the full report for legal reasons.
"It's great to take the World Cup to an Arab country because Morocco bid four times, Egypt twice. If nothing has happened, we go to Qatar," said Champagne.
"But we cannot go to Qatar if we don't solve the issue of the exploitation of the workers, which means that the companies from the rest of the world have to be subject to strict regulations based on what has been said by Amnesty International and ITUC (the International Trade Union Conference).
"We have a network of exploitation of poverty which starts in the countryside of India and the valleys of Nepal," he said. "The World Cup is a celebration. Imagine if we have this celebration knowing it has been on the exploitation of poverty."
Qatar has been widely criticised over its treatment of migrant workers in the construction industry and says it is working to address the problem.
Although formal investigations have been started against some unidentified people mentioned in Garcia's report, Eckert's statement said there was not enough evidence to suggest that the bidding process needed to be re-opened.
"It seems that the very integrity of the vote is tainted, so we need to see what happened. We need to know, to protect the World Cup," said Champagne.
"We need to rebuild FIFA's image and I personally regret what happened last week because it has not helped at all.
"We still have time but we need to know what is inside Mr Garcia's report, his findings, his recommendations as well as other things."
Champagne was FIFA's Deputy Secretary General between 2002 and 2005, he worked on special projects between 2005 and 2007 and was Director of International Relations from 2007 until he left FIFA in 2010.
He said that FIFA needed structural reforms to make it more democratic and transparent for the future, but said it was wrong to blame soccer's governing body for everything.
"I will not join the chorus of people saying they should walk away from FIFA, wash it all away," he said. "FIFA gets blamed for everything."
"In Spain, when a player comes back to his club in after an international match, either injured or tired, the media call that the 'FIFA virus'.
"But who is inflating the format of the qualifying competitions? Not FIFA. Who is creating new competitions which saturate the international calendar? Not FIFA."
He added: "I'm proud of the years I spent in FIFA because of all the things we achieved, but we could do so much more. We could govern it so much better if we adopt the changes we need.
"Basically, FIFA has to enter the 21st century. The way it functions is still a well-made system but designed to function as it was in the 1970s and 1980s."
