Mr bin Hammam’s Fifa coins private office and the bid team

Mr bin Hammam’s Fifa coins private office and the bid team shared the same building, and one of his closest aides was employed by the bid team. The e-mails are said to suggest regular contact between him and Mr al-Thawadi, and secret meetings between the Qataris and ten Exco members. It is also alleged that Mr bin Hammam made trips to lobby potential voters in a jet from a fleet reserved for the Qatari royal family. If a direct connection is established so convincingly that even FIFA cannot ignore it, the case for a new contest will be hard to resist. Mr Pieth has described the Sunday Times e-mails as a possible “smoking gun”.

The fresh allegations cover only the four votes from African Exco members, of a total of 14 that Qatar received in the final voting round. That leaves ten others who were prepared to dismiss the warnings of FIFA’s own technical committee, which described Qatar as the only high-risk bidder  and said that the summer heat would be dangerous for players, www.eafut14coins.co.uk despite claims being made for unproven stadium-cooling technologies.