The head of FIFA's delegation team to inspect potential World Cup venues has said that Qatar is too small to win the rights to the tournament.

Chile Football Federation president Harold Mayne-Nicholls, who doubles as FIFA's inspection bid leader, says the Middle Eastern country does not have the logistics to deal with such a large sporting event.

"From an organisational point of view, Qatar has the potential to host an international event like a FIFA World Cup," Mayne-Nicholls said.

"But it would pose a number of logistical challenges. So far, we have had only one tournament of a similar concept with a minimum of travelling distance, and that was the first tournament staged in 1930 in Uruguay. That has easily worked out well 80 years ago, but the scope of the event, as we all know, has changed dramatically."

Qatar is all set to host the Asian Football Confederations Cup in January 2011 but that tournament is on a much smaller scale than the world event. Qatar bid committee chief executive Hassan al-Thawadi admitted things would need to be ironed out ahead of FIFA's decision on who hosts the 2018 and 2022 events in December.

"As with is normal with new ideas, there will be concerns about implementing them," al-Thawadi said.

"We've seen the concerns and understand the concerns. There will be issues in terms of transportation of fans. We have looked at scheduling to resolve these issues. Every concern that may come from this new concept has been addressed by us, has been looked at us in great detail."