Miguel Angel Lopez, Spain/Portugal bid managing director: "FIFA thought it was better to promote football in other latitudes and there we are. The decision is focused on taking football to regions which have never held a World Cup." Spain coach Vicente del Bosque: "Perhaps the members of the executive committee wanted to expand football to new lands, to countries that are powerful economically, to those with money."
Prime Minister David Cameron: "It's hard to see what more you can do, but in the end it turns out having the best technical bid, the best commercial bid, a passion for football, that's not enough.
"It's desperately sad. There hasn't been a World Cup in England in my lifetime, I was hoping we could change that but not this time." Bid adviser Keith Mills: "I'm not sure what else we could have done and I think FIFA are sending a message to the world about where they want the World Cup.
"FIFA's message was loud and clear today that they want football and the World Cup to go to the developing part of the world.
British sports minister Hugh Robertson: "The only explanation I can give is the one given by Sepp Blatter, that they wanted to take the World Cup to new frontiers."
Former Belgian footballer Marc Wilmots (to public broadcaster RTBF): "Russia is a political choice and Qatar is an economic choice. You can say that to some extent the sport has been the loser with the decision for these two World Cups." "Now everyone knew from the start that there would be more people disappointed than winners. We are in the first category but from a sporting point of view you have to know how to accept this with grace."
Howard Stringer, bid chairman and CEO of Sony Corp: "We had it in 2002 — that was too big a mountain to climb. I was hoping we could get Japan another mission — the chance to do something spectacular in technology for society." JFA vice-president Kuniya Daini: "We had heard people say our bid was too soon (after co-hosting the 2002 World Cup) so it's possible that was the reason.
"We knew it would be tough but it's still a big disappointment. We have set a target of hosting the World Cup alone by 2050 so we will be bidding again."
US bid chairman Sunil Gulati: "We're disappointed. No way to get around that. We worked very hard. The country has been behind us in a way we haven't seen... We know it came down to two. Which automatically means it was very close.
"There's a lot of countries in the world that want to host these events. People have figured out a way to do it and not lose a lot of money, especially if you don't have infrastructure issues. Certainly in the two winners today there are going to be a lot of infrastructure needs and commitments have been made by the governments."
Mark Arbib, Australia sports minister to Australian television: "We're all pretty shattered over here. It was a bit unexpected because we thought we had run a first-class campaign to win. We did our best ... unfortunately it wasn't the case." Australia captain Lucas Neill: "I had an inkling we weren't going to get it anyway. It's pretty warm (in Qatar). It's OK in an air conditioned stadium. You get a little bit of a breeze."
