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AFC boss backs home World Cup bid

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-29 10:15

Chairman of FIFA Goal Programme Mohammed Bin Hammam plays with a ball during a inauguration ceremony of the national football technical center for the Cote d'Ivoire national soccer team in Bingerville May 08, 2010. [Photo/Agencies]

SINGAPORE - Qatari Mohamed Bin Hammam, president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), has thrown his weight behind his country's bid to host the 2022 World Cup.

The support of Bin Hammam, also a FIFA executive committee member, is a huge boost to the tiny Gulf emirate, which is bidding to bring the world's biggest soccer tournament to the Middle East for the first time.

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If, as widely expected, the World Cup goes to Europe in 2018, Qatar will be competing with South Korea, Japan, Australia and the United States for the right to host the 2022 tournament.

"I have one vote ... and frankly speaking I will vote for Qatar, but if Qatar is not in the running I will vote for another Asian country," Bin Hammam said on Tuesday at the Soccerex Asian forum in Singapore.

Qatar would be Asia's second World Cup after South Korea and Japan co-hosted the 2002 tournament.

The winning bid, along with the host of the 2018 tournament, will be announced by FIFA in Zurich on Dec 2, something Bin Hammam said he did not initially agree with.

"I was against deciding two World Cup bid decisions in the same room on the same day, but most of my colleagues were with that option so I have to respect their experience and wisdom and most of them are more experienced than me," he said.

The disagreement is one of a number the Qatari admitted to having with FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who Bin Hammam has been touted as a possible successor of.

"Even with my own brother I have arguments, Blatter is not any different from him in this situation," he said.

Bin Hammam, however, went on to praise Blatter for his decision to take the World Cup to South Africa this year for the first time, saying the event was a big success.

"He was insistent to take the World Cup to Africa while most of us had doubts over the suitability of Africa."

Reuters