Football Association of Thailand president Worawi Makudi is among several Fifa executive members to be investigated by the world football body's ethics committee in the probe into the bid for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup events, English and German news reports said Thursday.
Citing sources close to Fifa, The Daily Telegraph and Die Welt reported that Spanish federation president Angel Maria Villar Llona and Belgian Michelo d'Hooghe are the target of the latest probe, with the British paper also naming Mr Worawi.
Fifa spokeswoman Delia Fischer said, "we can neither confirm nor dismiss this. This is a case for the independent ethics committee."
Football Association of Thailand president Worawi Makudi is among seven executive members of Fifa being investigated by an ethics committee over allegations of bribery. (EPA file photo)
The news came a week after ethics committee investigator Michael Garcia and judge Hans-Joachim Eckert said probes had been launched against "a number of individuals".
Mr Eckert cleared Qatar 2022 and Russia 2018 to host the World Cup in his final report on Mr Garcia's probe. Mr Garcia has appealed this and Fifa meanwhile filed a criminal complaint to the Swiss Attorney General against unknown persons for possible wrongdoing.
Mr Llona reportedly refused to co-operate with Mr Garcia in the initial probe, a wrongdoing that saw former executive Franz Beckenbauer suspended by Fifa until he answered a questionnaire.
A Spanish federation spokesman said: "We know nothing about it, and there will certainly be no statement from our side. That would have to be announced first by Fifa."
Mr Worawi could be probed over his involvement in a gas deal between Thailand and Qatar shortly before the World Cup vote by the executive committee in December 2009, according to the Telegraph.
The paper said that Mr D'Hooghe accepted an expensive painting over Russia's 2018 bid, and Die Welt said his son got a job as doctor in Qatar after the World Cup vote.
But Mr D'Hooghe told the German paper he only had to "clarify a few things in connection with known facts" to the ethics committee.