Documents leaked to The Sunday Times will add to calls for Qatar to be stripped of the right to host the 2022 World Cup

The controversial Qatar World Cup bid team broke Fifa’s rules by running a secret “black operations” campaign to sabotage rivals competing to host the tournament, according to documents leaked to The Sunday Times.

Emails from a whistleblower show how the bid paid a public relations firm and former CIA agents to pump out fake propaganda about its main rivals, the United States and Australia, during its successful campaign to host the next World Cup.

The campaign involved recruiting influential people to attack the bids in their own countries, seeking to create the impression that there was “zero support” for the World Cup domestically.

One of the key criteria laid down by Fifa, world football’s governing body, was that the bids should have strong backing