DOHA (Reuters) – Qatar has faced unprecedented criticism since it was picked as the host of the 2022 World Cup, some of which has amounted to slander, the country’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani said in a televised address on Tuesday.
“We dealt with the situation from the beginning in good faith. We even considered some of the criticism as positive and constructive,” he said.
“But it appears to us that the campaign is continuing and expanding and contains slander and double standards.”
(Reporting by Ghaida Ghantous, Nadine Awadalla and Moataz Mohamed, Editing by Andrew Heavens)
