Qatar had already demonstrated that suitability for hosting a World Cup counts for nothing. Now Sepp Blatter has admitted it. Should Australia ask FIFA for its bidding money back? Michael Visontay writes.

It's hard to believe anything Sepp Blatter says any more, but let's accept, for once, that he was telling the truth in his astonishing admission about the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

"It was agreed inside the group that we go to Russia because it has never been to eastern Europe, and for 2022 we go back to America," he told the Russian news agency Tass. "And so we would have the World Cup in the two biggest political powers."

He then added that four votes from Europe later switched from the USA to Qatar.

There it is. As if he's reflecting on last week's weather, Blatter casually admits the bidding process was a sham, that FIFA had decided in advance of the vote which countries would host the tournaments, that the merits of each bid were discounted, that the time and money every national federation had poured into their bids were wasted.

Setting aside his brazen disregard for how corrupt this makes him and every other member of the voting committee look, Blatter has now opened up FIFA to a whole new world of financial pain.

It would be open to every national federation, and government, who funded and backed a bid for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to ask for their money back, and sue for misrepresentation by FIFA.

The Americans have already got their revenge; they used the Federal Justice Department to track down some rotten apples, charge and extradite them, forcing the Swiss to get off their behinds and follow suit.

As for the other sorry bidders, Simon Johnson, chief operating officer of England's failed 2018 World Cup bid, put it nicely following Blatter's admission. The English Football Association had "every right to bring legal action against FIFA", he told the BCC, adding:

All the way through the process we were being told by high ranking FIFA officials that as long as we put together a strong bid and a good presentation we would have a lot to offer.

What about Australia's much-maligned bids? Yes, bids. We started out bidding for both 2018 and 2022, then switched to just the latter tournament when it became clear we didn't have a chance for 2018. Surely now Football Federation Australia cannot stand back and just pretend it was all a bad dream. The government poured $40 million into our bid. That would help a lot of disabled people in the NDIS, or fund women's refuges and other resources to combat domestic violence.

But here's the bigger question. Why would any country mount a bid for a World Cup (or Euro Championship or Asian Cup, for that matter) in the future with this governing organisation? When the head of FIFA admits the bid and vote was pre-determined, how could you have any confidence that the merits of your bid would count for anything?

Qatar has already demonstrated that suitability for hosting a World Cup counts for nothing.

Perhaps, ironically, Sepp Blatter has done the football community a favour. He has now proven, beyond a doubt, that FIFA is rotten to the core.

It's time for football administrators and fans to draw a line in the sand, not in Qatar, and take concrete steps towards a new post-FIFA era of football governance.

Journalist Michael Visontay founded and taught a course on sport, media and culture at UNSW, and is a regular commentator on sport for 2BL.