Blatter seemed to have thrown his weight behind Qatar when he said the Arab world deserved to host a World Cup.

And he added: "Qatar has a good chance to become the first country from the region to host it."

The comments apparently pushed them ahead of Australia in the race to run the 2018 or 2022 tournament.

Qatar is the home nation of Asian Football Confederation Mohammed Bin Hammam who launched an attempt to end Blatter's reign in charge of FIFA in February by limiting the number of years the FIFA President can stay in office.

Blatter is currently in his fourth term of office since first being elected in 1998, but bin Hammam wants to limit that to just two terms of four years each.

Now Blatter faces accusations of buying off Bin Hammam with his comments backing Qatar's bid to host the World Cup.

But in an interview with German paper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Blatter admitted he was only being polite to the Arab nation.

And he furiously denied he had done any deal for the tiny Middle East nation to secure the prized tournament.

"I have most certainly not made any deal. How could I? As President of FIFA I would never misuse my office," he said.

"I did the same in Qatar as I did with Mr Medvedev and Mr Putin in Moscow, what I also did in Japan and with the Korean President.

"I have told them all your candidacy is good, but it is not I who decides but 24 members of the Executive Committee.

"I do that in every country."

Blatter admitted relations were strained between himself and Bin Hammam after the Qatari tried to oust Blatter from his role at the top of FIFA.

Blatter added: "I never had any problem with Mohammed. He has behaved aggresively towards me in the last two meetings.

"I've always told him: We must work properly with each other, like members of the FIFA administration should do it, as gentlemen and sportsmen."

He also insisted this year's World Cup would be a success - despite thousands of unsold match tickets - after personally pledging to bring the competition to Africa in 1998.

"The World Cup is important for FIFA and the whole of Africa," he said. "This World Cup will be successful, but it won't have any impact on my future in FIFA."  

But he did admit: "The World Cup is more expensive for FIFA than anticipated."