LONDON: Football Association chairman Greg Dyke has said that the game has to deal fairly with Qatar over weekend corruption allegations writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

The Sunday Times claimed that Mohamed Bin Hammam, the Qatari who was president of the Asian confederation at the time of the 2022 World Cup award, had paid $5m through various slush funds in covert pursuit of votes.

The Qatar organising committee has denied any wrongdoing and insisted that Bin Hammam, who has since been banned from football over other issues, was never involved in the bid.

Dyke, asked for his reaction, said: “My instinct is that it’s very serious, pretty comprehensive and there will need to be a very full investigation and then decisions taken. It’s pretty clear, if it’s proved to be true, that there was a serious attempt made to interfere with the process of awarding the 2022 World Cup.

“A lot of people have wondered why it was awarded to Qatar in quite such an easy process. The health and safety committee [sic] warned against giving it to Qatar because of the heat and there are questions to be asked about the lack of tradition of football in Qatar.

“But we have to believe what Qatar are are saying. There is a process. You’ve got to be fair in these things. The question that matters is whether the process was flawed because of bribes that were being given anyway. You can only ask [FIFA investigator] Michael Garcia to take this very seriously and please report back as soon as you can.

“In the end FIFA has got to sort this out: if it happened and there was corruption then clearly the process has to be rerun.”

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