The Fifa president Sepp Blatter made the startling disclosure yesterday that he could not rule out a rerun of the voting for the right to host the 2022 World Cup finals which was controversially won by the tiny Arab emirate of Qatar in December.

Blatter, who is seeking re-election next month for a fourth term, said that a Fifa inquiry into claims made by The Sunday Times that there was corruption in the vote could lead to the Fifa executive committee (ExCo) voting again. It would represent the biggest U-turn in the governing body's history.

While Blatter was not thought to have cast his own vote for Qatar, he knows that any move to go back on the decision would cause huge ructions within world football. While the 75-year-old did not say what he thought the likely outcome of Fifa's investigation would be, he refused to put any limit on the measures they could take if they uncovered wrongdoing.

Read more at The Independent ...