He claimed Qatar won the bid fairly and that he, along with the rest of the Asian sports community, will "fight for the right" of the Gulf state to remain hosts for football's showpiece event.

Sheikh Ahmad has again publicly come to Qatar's defence following months of allegations, led by the Sunday Times in London.

The main allegation centres on claims that Qatar's former FIFA former Executive Committee member and Asian Football Confederation President Mohamed Bin Hammam paid international football officials a total of $5 million (£3 million/€4 million) to support the bid.

FIFA is currently evaluating a report into the votes for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments compiled by former United States Federal prosecutor Michael Garcia, but is refusing to make the findings public, despite calls from Garcia himself for them to do so.

The year-long investigation reportedly involved interviewing more than 75 witnesses and compiling a dossier consisting of over 200,000 pages and audio interviews.

But Sheikh Ahmad, who is also President of the Association of National Olympic Committees and a leading powerbroker in the Olympic Movement, believes no conclusive evidence will be found.

The Sunday Times in London has been the leading British newspaper reporting on the alleged corruption ©Sunday Times




"I think Qatar got it fairly, with the procedures of FIFA, and we won't take the World Cup from Qatar because of some negative media opinion," Sheikh Ahmad told AFP, speaking during the Asian Games, which closed here yesterday.

"We will resist until the end and we will fight for the right of Qatar until the end because we think it's related more to racism than reality.

"The majority [of this racism is] from the media.

"We won the first time, we can win the second time, we won against America and London.

"We will not leave our right, for whoever and for whatever, Asia will take a position, all Asia will take a position, not only Qatar."