Sepp Blatter has admitted that awarding the World Cup to Qatar was a mistake.

In an interview with the Swiss daily newspaper Tages Anzeiger, Sepp Blatter, the former president of FIFA, said he regretted the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.

Blatter, who was President of FIFA from 1998 – 2015, said, “[It] was a mistake. It’s too small a country.

“Football and the World Cup are too big for Qatar.”

Blatter also emphasised that the criteria for selecting countries has changed since Qatar was awarded the tournament in 2012.

“Since then, social considerations and human rights have been taken into account for each candidate country for the organization of a World Cup,” Blatter added, while confirming he would not be attending the tournament, but would watch it at home.

About the thousands of migrant workers who are believed to have died while constructing stadiums and infrastructure for the tournament, Amnesty International said, “Qatari authorities have failed to investigate the deaths of thousands of migrant workers over the past decade, despite evidence of links between premature deaths and unsafe working conditions.”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, just this week a Qatar World Cup ambassador told the German TV channel, ZDF, that being LGBTQ+ is ‘damage in the mind’.

“They have to accept our rules here,” Khalid Salman said.

“(Homosexuality) is haram. You know what haram (forbidden) means?”

“I am not a strict Muslim but why is it haram? Because it is damage in the mind.”

The interview was reportedly stopped at that point by an another official.

The UK will send 15 police to act as a buffer between British fans and Qatari officials.