MELBOURNE // Australia’s bid for the 2022 World Cup never stood a chance because their officials had not understood that votes were secured in back rooms according to “commercial interests”, the country’s football chief Frank Lowy has said.
The bid for the 2022 finals awarded to Qatar has come under scrutiny after the arrests in Switzerland of 14 football and media executives in a scandal that has rocked Fifa.
Authorities are probing the bidding process for 2022 and the 2018 tournament awarded to Russia, while other World Cups, including last year’s finals in Brazil and the 2010 edition in South Africa, are also under the scanner.
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Australia’s failed bid is also being probed by national police, sparking calls from local media for Football Federation Australia (FFA) president Lowy to step down until it is cleared of any wrongdoing.
Lowy said Australia was guilty only of being naive in campaigning for a vote he described as effectively predetermined.
“On the subject, did we have a chance or didn’t we have a chance. As it turned out to be, it was a competition between various associations and some other associations – nation states,” the 84-year-old shopping centre magnate told Sky News on Tuesday.
“The states talk to each other about their commercial and diplomatic interests.
“We know that now. At that time none of us had any idea it was done in secret, so we really had no chance ... even if there was no corruption.”
Australia’s bid was criticised by Fifa’s ethics committee last year in a summary of its own investigation into the bidding.
Australia spent AUS$42 million (Dh118.5m) of public funds on its bid but secured only a single vote.
A separate AUS$500,000 payment by the FFA for a football facility in Trinidad and Tobago has come under heavy scrutiny after it was misappropriated by former Fifa power-broker Jack Warner.
Lowy said he would welcome an inquiry but had nothing new to share.
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