Qatar might lose World Cup

SYDNEY - The Associated Press

Mohamed Bin Hammam. AFP photo

Australia’s football chief isn’t convinced the 2022 World Cup will go ahead as planned in Qatar.

Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy said on Monday that the “last word hasn’t been heard yet” on the FIFA vote that awarded the event to Qatar over bids from countries including the United States and Australia.

Lowy did not elaborate on how or why Qatar would lose the rights, but said it related to “the state of the FIFA executive committee.”

“I don’t know whether you recall when I came back from that fateful day (after losing the bid) and I said ‘this is not the last word about awarding the World Cup,’ ” Lowy said after he was formally re-elected as FFA chairman on Monday. “Well, it wasn’t the last word.

“Don’t ask me to elaborate because I don’t have a crystal ball ... but the media all over the world is talking about that, the awarding particularly of ‘22, the state of the FIFA executive committee — all that stuff.

“It’s not over,” Lowy was quoted to say by Australian Associated Press. “I don’t exactly know where it will bounce. The only thing I know is it’s not over yet.”

Qatar’s successful bid became implicated in a broad-ranging corruption scandal that plagued FIFA this year, with FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke saying in a leaked email that they “bought the World Cup.”

There were accusations of corruption in the bidding process and Mohamed Bin Hammam, the president of the Asian Football Confederation and a campaigner for his native Qatar to host the World Cup, has since been banned for life from all football activities on charges of trying to bribe Caribbean voters in his quest to unseat Sepp Blatter as president of FIFA.