DOHA, Qatar: Qatar says the “serious and baseless allegations” that two FIFA officials were paid to vote for its successful 2022 World Cup bid are based on evidence that is “wholly unreliable.” Issa Hayatou of Cameroon and Jacques Anouma of the Ivory Coast were allegedly paid $1.5 million to vote for Qatar, according to evidence submitted Tuesday to a British Parliamentary inquiry by a British newspaper. The Qatar football federation later issued a statement saying the allegations “will remain unproven because they are false.” The statement adds “we have nothing to hide and are prepared to support and cooperate with any further investigations.” Qatar beat bids from the United States, Australia, Japan and South Korea in December's vote. Earlier in the day six FIFA executive committee members were accused of ethical misconduct in the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups during a British parliamentary hearing into football Tuesday. Member of Parliament Damian Collins said unpublished evidence from a newspaper investigation shows that Hayatou and Anouma were paid $1.5 million to vote for Qatar. The conduct of Jack Warner, Nicolas Leoz, Ricardo Teixeira and Worawi Makudi in the 2018 contest was described as “improper and unethical” by the former head of England's bid. The allegations were made in the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons, which is looking at England's failed bid for the 2018 World Cup as part of a wider inquiry into football governance. In Zurich, FIFA President Sepp Blatter said he will ask for evidence of the claims made in the committee hearing and forward any allegations to the FIFA ethics committee. “I cannot say they are all angels or they are all devils,” he said of the executive members. “We must have the evidence and then we will act immediately against all those (who) would be breach of the ethical code rules,” Blatter added. The bidding contest had already been rocked ahead of the December vote by an undercover investigation by The Sunday Times newspaper in Britain that led to two of FIFA's 24 executive committee members being suspended. Amos Adamu of Nigeria was found guilty by FIFA's ethics court of soliciting bribes from undercover reporters, while Reynald Temarii of Tahiti was banned for breaching rules on confidentiality and loyalty. Some of the newspaper's evidence was never published, but it was sent to the British committee's legislators Monday to be made public using parliamentary privilege. “The Sunday Times' submission, and this is to be published by us later, claims that $1.5 million was paid to FIFA executive committee members Issa Hayatou and Jacques Anouma, who went on to vote for Qatar,” Collins said. Citing the evidence, Collins claimed that Qatar employed a middleman to arrange deals with African members to secure their votes. The session then heard from David Triesman, who resigned as chairman of England's Football Association and its 2018 bid team last May – seven months before the vote – after being secretly recorded by a tabloid newspaper making unproven claims that Spain and Russia set up a bribery scam to influence referees at the 2010 World Cup. Triesman – a member of the House of Lords – made the allegations about Warner, Leoz, Teixeira and Makudi to the committee. He claimed that Warner – a FIFA vice president and CONCACAF president from Trinidad and Tobago – asked for 2.5 million pounds to build an education center in Trinidad and for 500,000 pounds to buy Haiti's World Cup TV rights. __
