Lowy: "Last word" not heard on Qatar 2022
Reuters - Tuesday 29 November 2011, 00:46
The "last word" has not been
heard on FIFA's controversial vote to award Qatar the 2022
World Cup, according to Australia's newly re-elected football
chief Frank Lowy, who suggested the tiny Gulf nation could yet
be stripped of hosting rights for the tournament.
Qatar, where summer temperatures top 45 degrees Celsius
(113 Fahrenheit), was the surprise winner of the vote by FIFA's Executive Committee last December but has been dogged by
allegations of corruption in the bidding process. Qatar's bid
team strongly deny any wrongdoing.
Football Federation Australia boss Lowy spearheaded
Australia's failed A$45 million ($44 million) bid for the 2022
World Cup, which drew only a single vote, sparking an angry
backlash from local politicians and pundits.
"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 told local
reporters. "Well it wasn't the last word and the last word
hasn't been heard yet.
"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 - all
that stuff."
"It's not over. I don't exactly know where it will bounce.
The only thing I know is it's not over yet."
The octogenarian shopping centre tycoon has previously
castigated the bidding process, saying that FIFA's voting
executive committee members lied to him outright about their
support for Australia's bid.
FIFA has banned a raft of football officials, including
members of its voting executive committee, for
corruption-related offences over the past year but has
repeatedly denied any impropriety in awarding Qatar the 2022
tournament.