NYON, Switzerland (AP) ― FIFA vice president Michel Platini has criticized a British newspaper for linking him to corruption claims about Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid.

The Daily Telegraph led Tuesday’s edition reporting that Platini secretly met with his FIFA board colleague Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar “shortly before” the World Cup vote in December 2010.

The claim follows the rival Sunday Times alleging that bin Hammam, who FIFA expelled in 2012, paid soccer officials millions of dollars to support Qatar’s successful campaign.

Platini writes to the Telegraph editor describing “unfounded rumors which aim at tarnishing my image.”

“I find it astonishing that conversations with a fellow member of the FIFA Executive Committee could suddenly be transformed into a matter of state,” Platini said in the letter released by UEFA.