World soccer's governing body FIFA has denied having a contingency plan to move the 2010 Soccer World Cup to Australia if South Africa is unable to host the event.

South African newspaper The Star reported on Monday that Michael Palmer, head of FIFA's South African office, said the rumor was created by "someone", referring to a local news report on Sunday.

"That is absolutely untrue, 100 percent. There is no contingency plan at all. Someone has made that up," said Palmer.

Rapport, a South African Sunday newspaper, said that South Africa's chances of hosting the World Cup were getting slimmer by the day and that there were "whispers in the corridors of soccer power" that the event could be moved to Australia.

"We absolutely, categorically deny it. We won't even discuss it," said Palmer.

He said Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, had spent years ensuring the event goes to Africa.

Reasons cited by Rapport for the possibility that South Africa might lose the World Cup were serious violent crime, a third world public transport system, HIV/AIDS and insufficient accommodation.

Danny Jordaan, head of South Africa's organizing committee for the 2010 World Cup, has also rejected the report, saying it was "laughable" and "absolute nonsense."

There have been constant criticism in South Africa over the government's s slowness in preparing for the event, which was recently heated by local media coverage on how the Germans host this year's World Cup.

South Africans who are currently concentrating on the Germany World Cup will soon be jolted back to reality of stadiums, transport, security, IT and the millions of other requirements of hosting a World Cup, Mninawa Ntloko, a newspaper sports editor, commented recently.

Those "brilliant" German stadiums absent in South Africa were a real wake-up call and "people wonder if we (South Africans) aren't going to embarrass ourselves in four years," he said.