SOCCER:THE HEAD of Qatar's winning bid to host the 2022 World Cup has hit back at the allegations of corruption levelled against his bid, saying there is "not a shred of evidence" to support them.

Hassan al-Thawadi, the bid’s chief executive, argues the suspicion and allegations against the bid are fuelled partly by anti-Arab prejudice.

“I do not believe these claims are being made out of racism,” Thawadi said, speaking in Doha, the Qatari capital, “but I genuinely think that ignorance fed into prejudice and made it a more fertile ground for these rumours to take seed and grow.

“I do believe there is prejudice against the fact that we are a rich, Arab nation – yes, I think there is genuine prejudice there.”

Acknowledging he was awarded a huge budget from Qatar’s government to market and support the bid – although he adamantly refused to reveal its true figure – Thawadi insisted the bid was conducted cleanly.

He said he had considered establishing an independent investigation, and was going to ask Lord Coe to chair it, but decided there was no reason why he should and it would be unworkable.

“I said to Mike Lee [the English consultant to the Qatar and London 2012 Olympic bids] I wanted to approach Seb Coe to be chairman of that committee. But in the end, why do I have to prove my innocence when there is not a shred of evidence?

Thawadi was critical of the British House of Commons select committee for culture, media and sport for publishing with parliamentary privilege the most damaging accusation against Qatar, that three African Fifa executive committee members were paid €1 million to secure their votes.

That allegation was supplied to the committee by the Sunday Times, which had not published it, saying it was based on information from “a whistleblower who had worked with the Qatar bid”, and warning the allegation was unproven.

Without giving the bid any notice or inquiring about the story’s validity, the select committee published it, allowing the allegation to be reported protected by parliamentary privilege.

The select committee did then publish Qatar’s response, saying the story had been “fabricated” by a former member of staff with “an axe to grind”.

On Sunday the whistleblower retracted her story, publicly identifying herself as Phaedra Almajid, formerly the Qatar bid’s international media specialist, who said she had done it to “hurt” the bid after she was removed from her job in March 2010.