Prime Minister David Cameron has insisted the inquiry into the latest bribery and corruption allegations to hit the Qatar 2022 World Cup bid must be allowed to take its natural course.

The Sunday Times claims to be in receipt of "hundreds of millions" of documents which allegedly detail payments to FIFA officials from disgraced former FIFA executive committee member Mohamed Bin Hammam.

England bid for the 2018 tournament - which was decided at the same time as the 2022 event - and were eliminated after the first round of voting after receiving only two votes from 22 FIFA members.

Speaking at an event in Newark ahead of next week's by-election, Mr Cameron admitted he has painful memories of the bidding process which culminated in 2010.

"There is an inquiry under way quite rightly into what happened in terms of the World Cup bid for 2022. I think we should let that inquiry take place rather than prejudge it," Mr Cameron said.
"My memories of that bidding process are, as I've said earlier, not happy ones in terms of the way the whole thing was arranged and the role of FIFA and the rest of it.

"Let's let the inquiry take place.

"As for the future of the World Cup in 2018, generally speaking we should try to keep sport and politics separated.

"I think we should use that as a rule. In extremis there are occasions - Zimbabwe, obviously South Africa - there are occasions where it is right to not take part in a sporting occasion but on the whole we should try and keep them separate."

The investigation into the allegations against the Qataris and Bin Hammam are being led by US lawyer and FIFA chief investigator Michael Garcia.

But Simon Chadwick, Professor of Sport and Business at Coventry University, believes FIFA must examine its own role in the scandal and feels Qatar will resist any attempts to take the 2022 World Cup away from them

"My view is that this is a situation very much of FIFA's own making and I'm not pointing the finger at any one individual in particular," Chadwick told Sky Sports News.

"In this particular case Qatar and the 2022 World Cup are in the spotlight but there is a much broader issue here around FIFA, the way that it's governed and obviously around cases of corruption.
"The fact that Garcia is involved in the first place is a reflection of some of the fairly serious misdemeanours that have been going on at FIFA.

"I think it is very important for the Qataris to play a straight bat with this and be as open and as honest as possible.

"I think for FIFA as an organisation they are now going to have to get themselves out of a very difficult spot.

"On the one hand if they play the World Cup in Qatar in 2022 there are people across the world, other potential host nations, journalists and football officials who will say this is the wrong thing to do.

"At the same time on the opposite side of the coin if they take it away from Qatar then I'm pretty sure the Qataris will fight against it because they genuinely believe they fought and won it on merit alone."