A senior executive of football’s governing body Fifa has said that he believes awarding the 2022 World Cup to Qatar is “a blatant mistake”.

Theo Zwanziger is a former head of the German football association and is now a member of Fifa’s executive committee.

He told the German magazine Sportbild that the original awarding of the tournament to Qatar was flawed and went to say that a change to winter could be too disruptive for the European leagues.

“If the decision was really a mistake it should be lifted and should not become an even bigger burden for those who are not involved by changing it to the winter,” he is quoted as saying by the magazine.

Opposition has been mounting to playing a football tournament in Qatar during its harsh summer months for some time.

In early July Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, spoke of his desire to move the event to Qatar’s gentler winter months of January and February.

However, Qatar’s original bid was to host a summer World Cup. This has led the countries that submitted rival bids to host the 2022 tournament, Australia, South Korea, Japan and the US, now believe that another vote should take place.