Australia's long-held fears that disgraced former AFC president Mohamed bin Hammam had helped engineer votes for Qatar's 2022 World Cup bid seem to have been confirmed on Sunday, with fresh allegations surfacing of corruption at the heart of the Gulf nation's successful campaign.

Fairfax Media understands members of the Australian bidding team believed during the process that the then-FIFA executive committee member had been operating as the main agent of Qatar's bid and that his conduct had not been in keeping with FIFA's rules.

Publicly, the Qatari national kept a distance from his nation's bid because of the clear conflict of interest and the breach of FIFA regulations. But Britain's The Sunday Times published fresh allegations at the weekend that bin Hammam was, in fact, the mastermind behind the Qatari bid.