THE head of Norway's FA has dismissed claims that Sepp Blatter told a private dinner the 2022 World Cup would be moved from Qatar -insisting the Fifa president on the contrary confirmed it would take place in the Middle Eastern state. German newspaper Der Spiegel has reported that Blatter made remarks at a dinner with football officials in Norway on October 13, suggesting Qatar would be stripped of the tournament and rebuking Qatar's rulers for backing Islamic terror groups. However Yngve Hallen, president of the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF), said he did not recognise any such claims.
He said: "We did have an informal dinner but I don't recognise what has been said in the newspaper. "On the contrary, he was quite clear that the World Cup will be in Qatar."
Meanwhile, the initial findings of the Garcia Report, the investigation by Fifa's independent ethics committee into bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, are due to be revealed at the end of this week. German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, head of the adjudicatory chamber of the ethics committee, will make his initial judgement but the full report is not expected to be published.