Japan weigh up push for World Cup revote after Sepp Blatter resignation
Wednesday 3 June 2015 11:48, UK
Japan may request a re-run of the bidding process to host the 2022 World Cup in the wake of Sepp Blatter's decision to step down at FIFA.
Qatar beat Japan, Australia the United States and South Korea in December 2010 to win the right to host the tournament, but the ballot has been dogged by allegations of corruption ever since.
Despite renewed speculation on the future of the World Cup in seven years on the back of Blatter's shock announcement, organisers in Qatar insisted on Wednesday they would not relinquish the right to host football's showpiece event.
It would seem though that Qatar could face another fight on its hands from Japan and Australia who were unsuccessful in their initial bids.
Yuuichiro Nakajima, former executive director on the Japan 2022 bid committee, told Sky Sports News HQ: "We now have a member of the FIFA executive committee from Japan and I'm sure he'll be leading the charge in trying to find out what happened exactly and where we go from here.
We now have a member of the FIFA executive committee from Japan and I'm sure he'll be leading the charge in trying to find out what happened exactly and where we go from here.
"Whether we will put pressure on the bid from FIFA to re-run the bidding process for the two forthcoming World Cups is too early to say.
"We don't even know what we are talking about, whether Sepp Blatter was really guilty of anything at all and whether there was impropriety in the bidding process for those two World Cups.
"We will have to see the reports. We will have to get to the bottom of it before we come down on one side or the other."
The summary of an internal FIFA investigation into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, released in 2014, cleared the Qatar bid of wrongdoing.
Former US Attorney Michael Garcia, who conducted the probe, later resigned, however, and said the summary contained "numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations" of facts and conclusions in his report.
Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy said the race for the 2022 World Cup was "not clean" and he has revealed specific information with authorities.
In an open letter, Lowy said: "We ran a clean bid. I know that others did not, and I have shared what I know with the authorities, including Michael Garcia who undertook a two-year investigation into the 2022 World Cup bid.
"On a personal level, since December 2, 2010, when Australia received just one vote in its World Cup bid, I have nursed a bitter grievance. We ran a clean bid and we are proud of that but it wasn't a level playing field and therefore we didn't win it. I will always be bitterly disappointed about the outcome."
Dave Hill, former head of the Australian soccer federation, demanded further action and expressed his regret at the organisation's former support for Blatter.
"It's taken the Americans, the FBI and IRS, to set an example by laying charges about corruption on American soil and the English who were trying to organise a boycott of European counrties for the next World Cup," Hill said.
"We should have been part of that but it's not too late. Australia should be a very noisy, very vocal and a very aggressive agent for reform in the cleaning up of FIFA, even now."
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