Australia surprisingly were eliminated in the first round of voting with just one vote as Qatar sealed the deal in the final round with 14 votes to the United States' eight.

Neill, who was part of the delegation in Zurich, said he was proud of the bidding team and vowed to win the Asian Cup at next month's tournament in Qatar.

"This is hard to take but as a player I am now even more determined to bring a smile back to our faces," he said.

"We can do this in one simple way, going to Qatar in January for the AFC Asian Cup and returning home as champions.

"Australians are known as fighters and we will pick ourselves up and look at the positives and there are plenty of those around football in Australia right now."

Australia begin their campaign on January 10 against India before matches against Korea Republic and Bahrain complete their group phase.

It will be the second time the Socceroos will compete in Asia's biggest showpiece following their debut in the 2007 event in Southeast Asia where they were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Japan.