AKIPRESS.COM - Qatar’s 2022 football World Cup organisers denied any wrong-doing after a British newspaper alleged a top official paid more than $5 million (Dh18.3m) to secure support in the bidding process.

The Sunday Times said it had obtained millions of emails, documents and bank transfers relating to alleged payments made by Qatari former top football official Mohamed bin Hammam, AFP said.

It alleged that Bin Hammam, a former Asian Football Confederation president, used slush funds to pay cash to top football officials to win a “groundswell” of support for the tiny nation’s World Cup bid.

He was then on the executive committee of Fifa, the sport’s global governing body.

Bin Hammam, who launched an abortive challenge against incumbent Fifa president Sepp Blatter, resigned from his Fifa and AFC posts in 2012, shortly before he was banned for life from football administration by Fifa’s ethics committee.

Fifa is investigating the 2010 vote that awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar and the 2018 tournament to Russia, following previous corruption accusations.

A report by Michael Garcia, a top US lawyer, is to be finalised this year. He was due to meet senior officials from the Qatar 2022 organising committee in Oman on Monday.

In their response to the allegations, the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy said their bid “upheld the highest standard of ethics and integrity”.

Bin Hammam “played no official or unofficial role” in the bid committee, they said. They said they were cooperating with Garcia and were “totally confident” that an “objective” inquiry would conclude Qatar won “fairly”.

“We vehemently deny all allegations of wrong-doing. We will take whatever steps are necessary to defend the integrity of Qatar’s bid,” it said in a statement.

“The right to host the tournament was won because it was the best bid.”

The allegations come just days ahead of Fifa’s annual congress, to be held in Sao Paulo between June 9 and 12, where Blatter is set to announce his candidacy for a fifth four-year term.

The decision to give the World Cup to Qatar, a small Arabian Gulf peninsula with little football history, provoked widespread condemnation because it will be held in the summer.

Blatter said in May that it was a mistake to choose Qatar because of the summer desert heat and wants the tournament switched to the northern hemisphere winter, for the first time, to get round the problem.