`Asians utterly betrayed us'

`Asians utterly betrayed us'

ZURICH, JULY 6: South African bid leader Danny Jordaan lashed out at football's governing body Fifa here on Thursday after failing to win the 2006 World Cup.

``Fifa is always talking about family but you cannot have a family and feed just one child,'' stormed Jordaan, who had hoped South Africa would become the first African nation to host the World Cup.

``Africa's turn must come,'' Fifa president Sepp Blatter thundered at a news conference after he announced the decision taken by his executive committee.

The two-and-a-half year campaign came down in the end to the decision by New Zealander Charles Dempsey, the 73-year-old president of the Oceania Confederation, to abstain from voting in the final round after pledging his support to England in the first two rounds.

The South Africans, who had tried repeatedly for months to secure Dempsey's vote and who put intense pressure on him to change his mind from five o'clock in the morning on Thursday, could not conceal their anger towards him afterwards -- or towards the asian members of the executive who voted for Germany.

Irvin Khosa, the chairman of the South African bid committee said: ``Fifa should investigate this as I cannot understand how someone can vote in the first two rounds then opt out when the decision had to be made. He has betrayed the South African people.''

Raymond Hack, the general secretary of the South African Football Association said: ``We have been badly let down by people we thought would understand our needs the most. Asians more than anyone should have understood what the World Cup means to Africa. They have utterly betrayed us.''

Ismail Bhamjee, an executive committee member from South Africa's neighbours Botswana, said afterwards: ``Charles Dempsey said before the executive committee meeting started this morning that he had a statement to make and read from a letter, advised by his lawyers, that he would stop voting when England were eliminated.

``He said he had been accused of bribery and corruption and would not vote again after England were out. The committee were totally dumbstruck.''