World Cup bids 2018 and 2022

Three senior Fifa officials who will vote on the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids took bribes in the 1990s, according to the BBC's Panorama.

Nicolas Leoz, Issa Hayatou and Ricardo Teixeira took the money from a sport marketing firm awarded lucrative World Cup rights, the programme alleges.

The alleged bribes are included in a confidential document listing 175 payments totalling about $100m (£64m).

The three men did not respond to Panorama's allegations.

Fifa, world football's governing body, also declined interview requests to address the allegations.

Panorama, to be broadcast later, also reports on evidence of a fourth senior Fifa executive's continued involvement in the resale of World Cup tickets to touts.

The BBC has received criticism over the timing of the programme, which comes ahead of Thursday's vote by Fifa's executive committee on who will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals.

England is competing with Russia, Spain/Portugal and Netherlands/Belgium to host the 2018 tournament.

The BBC has defended the timing of Panorama, saying the programme is in the public interest.

The alleged bribes to the three members of Fifa's executive committee were paid by sports marketing company International Sport and Leisure (ISL) and date from 1989 to 1999, Panorama reports. The company collapsed in 2001.

Fifa granted ISL exclusive rights to market World Cup tournaments to some of the world's biggest brands and ISL received millions more from negotiating television broadcast rights.

A former account manager at ISL, Roland Buechel, said staff had long suspected bribes were being paid for the lucrative Fifa contracts.

"It is huge money, billions, that can be earned and all the sports marketing companies they fight, they want it," Mr Buechel said.

Some details of the alleged bribes emerged in 2008, when six ISL managers were accused of misusing company money.

One Fifa official - Nicolas Leoz, of Paraguay, the head of South America's football confederation - was named in court papers in connection with payments totalling $130,000 (£83,000).

But Panorama has obtained a confidential ISL document which lists 175 secret payments. It shows Mr Leoz was paid a further $600,000 (£384,000 using current conversions) in three instalments of $200,000.

Mr Leoz did not respond to requests for comment on Panorama's allegations.

The second Fifa official named by the programme, Ricardo Teixeira, is head of the Brazilian Football Confederation which is responsible for staging the 2014 World Cup.

The ISL list shows a front company in Liechtenstein called Sanud received 21 payments totalling $9.5m (£6m).

Mr Teixeira was closely linked to Sanud by an inquiry of the Brazilian senate in 2001. It found that funds from Sanud had been secretly channelled to Mr Teixeira through one of his companies.

Mr Teixeira also did not respond to Panorama's request for comment on the allegations.

The list obtained by Panorama also includes details of 100,000 French Francs (£12,900) paid to Issa Hayatou, the Fifa vice-president representing football in African nations.

Mr Hayatou also did not respond to the allegations when contacted by Panorama.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter said in a statement that the 2008 court case had largely exonerated the former ISL officials.

He said: "It is important to stress that no Fifa officials were accused of any criminal offence in these proceedings."

The recipients of most of the money paid by ISL into accounts in Liechtenstein cannot be traced.

These latest allegations of wrongdoing by Fifa executive members come after two of the 24 committee members were banned last month from voting in Thursday's ballot. The bans came after the London-based Sunday Times accused Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii of being willing to sell their World Cup votes.

Critics of Fifa say a full investigation is required.