Fifa chief admits possible collusion

Zurich :Fifa President Joseph ‘Sepp' Blatter fuelled lingering suspicions of a vote-trading deal between England's World Cup rivals, Spain-Portugal and Qatar, on Friday after he admitted that an investigation into collusion was dropped because of a lack of evidence.

Suspicions that a deal between the Qatar and Iberian bids — worth up to seven votes — remain among their rivals and some executive committee members, despite the Fifa ethics committee dropping the case last week.

Blatter said that the two bids had not been completely cleared of suspicion by the ethics committee, but conceded that discussions between voters with bids in the race was inevitable. "We have eight members of the executive committee who [have bids] in the European [2018] bidding or 2022 bidding, and therefore it is obvious that these people speak together," he said.

"Collusion you cannot avoid, but if in this collusion there is something wrong then naturally somebody should intervene. But the ethics committee said they had not got enough evidence [against Spain-Portugal and Qatar], they haven't said it is ‘blanco' [entirely clean]."

Blatter's comments, which will ensure that questions over the 2018 and 2022 campaign linger until the final vote on December 2, came as he tried to draw a line under the damaging allegations that have clouded the race.

Blatter said he had warned executive committee members on Friday that the eyes of the world would be on them at the vote, and asked them to ensure that the vote was clean. Speaking for the first time since executive committee members Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii were banned, Blatter said that England's bid would not be damaged by a backlash against the UK media's role in exposing them.

He repeated criticism of the methods used by the Sunday Times in exposing corruption allegations. "Why should this have an influence on the English bid? I don't think they will take into consideration what has been published or not," he said.

"I am not pleased about [the Sunday Times] because this is not very fair, but it gives us the opportunity to clean a little bit what needs to be clean. I cannot say it is fair when you entrap people."