FIFA president Sepp Blatter gestures during a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah. (Reuters Photo)
May 20, 2011, 11.48am IST
LONDON: FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who is standing for re-election for a fourth term, has admitted that there is a ground swell of popular support to re-hold the 2022 vote won by Qatar.
Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup finals controversially last December.
The Independent quoted Blatter, as saying that a FIFA inquiry into claims made by The Sunday Times that there was corruption in the vote could lead to the FIFA executive committee (ExCo) voting again.
Re-voting would represent the biggest U-turn in the governing body's history.
While Blatter was not thought to have cast his own vote for Qatar, he knows that any move to go back on the decision would cause huge ructions within world football.
While the 75-year-old did not say what he thought the likely outcome of FIFA's investigation would be, he refused to put any limit on the measures they could take if they uncovered wrongdoing.
In an interview with the Press Association, Blatter said that the notion that the 2022 vote would be re-held was "alarming" but conceded it was one that had a groundswell of popular support and was "circulating around the world".
Taking the World Cup from Qatar would be a huge blow to the prestige of FIFA, which has been widely criticized for its decision to award the biggest sports event in the world to a country of 1.6 million people with little football culture and temperatures of around 50C in June and July.
Qatar spent by far and away the most on its bid, committing 27 million pounds on communications alone in one year. To put that in perspective, the next biggest budget in the 2022 race was Australia who spent 28 million pounds in total.
