FIFA to Publish Corruption Report; No Revote on 2018/2022 World Cups

(ATR) FIFA’s ruling body has unanimously agreed to release investigator Michael Garcia’s 430-page World Cup corruption report, with president Sepp Blatter ruling out any re-run of the 2018 and 2022 votes.

The ExCo made its decision at a meeting in Marrakesh on Friday following a recommendation by Domenico Scala, head of the federation’s audit and compliance committee. But reporters in Morocco tweeting from the FIFA press conference said there had been an "animated discussion".

"I am pleased they have agreed. It has been a long process to arrive atthis point and I understand the views of those who have been critical.We have always been determined that the truth should be known," Blatter said in a statement, effectively a U-turn. He had previously opposed publication.

"It is clear that while a summary of the report was issued, thepublication of this report has become a barrier to rebuilding publicconfidence and trust in FIFA."

But the entire report by the US lawyer, who quit as FIFA’s ethics investigator earlier this week following a dispute about its full publication, will not see the light of day.

The version that will be published will be "legally appropriate" and heavily redacted to protect the 75 interviewees who spoke with Garcia, the BBC reports.

While FIFA’s decision signals a change in strategy following repeated refusals to bow to pressure and publish the report in full, it raises question marks about the selection of content that will be made available.

FIFA said investigations into three current and one former FIFA ExCo member and Harold-Mayne Nicholls, FIFA’s inspection chief for the nine 2018/2022 World Cup bids, must be completed before the new version of Garcia’s bidding dossier is published, according to the BBC.

Last month, FIFA used a similar "legally appropriate" term to explain away the huge omissions in judge Hans-Joachim Eckert’s flawed 42-page summary of Garcia’s report, which cleared Russia and Qatar of any significant wrongdoing in the process that led to them securing the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

The former US attorney labeled it "erroneous", sparking a war of words with judge Eckert, which led to an appeal against the German’s botched summary. Garcia’s appeal was rejected this week, triggering his resignation from the FIFA post.

What we still don’t know

Eckert’s summary of Garcia’s comprehensive undertaking was full of holes.

It failed to fully explore and trashed corruption claims against the Gulf nation and Australia by two whistleblowers and did not even question the Russia 2018 bid’s claims to have lost emails because its computers were destroyed.

One glaring omission was any review of Spain-Portugal’s bid activities, for reasons still unexplained. It was known that Spain had colluded to trade votes with Qatar yet there was no reference to this.

Eckert’s summary also did not contain any criticisms of Blatter and ExCo members that Garcia claims was in his report.

Blatter Looks to the Future

The 78-uear-old Swiss said in his statement that "the report is about history and I am focused on the future" before confirming that Russia and Qatar would keep hosting rights whatever the outcome of ongoing FIFA ethics investigations.

"We will not revisit the 2018 and 2022 vote and a report by independent, external legal experts commissioned by Mr. Scala supports the view that there are no legal grounds to revoke the executive committee’s decision on the award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups," he said.

"We are already in the process of incorporating recommendations made by independent experts including the ethics committee for how the FIFA World Cup selection process can be improved so that everyone can be confident that the 2026 bidding process will be fair, ethical and open."

Blatter said Garcia had played "a valuable role in ensuring that FIFA rules are upheld".

"Although we are disappointed that our work with Mr. Garcia has ended this way, I want to make it clear that our commitment to ethical standards is stronger than ever," he said.

Blatter announced that ethics deputy chief Cornel Borbély had been appointed acting chairman of the investigatory chamber of the independent ethics committee. He worked closely with Garcia on the 18-month World Cup bidding report.

Borbély is now responsible for leading the ongoing procedures against five individuals "and ensuring that they are pursued to the fullest extent".

Garcia's replacement will be announced at the FIFA Congress in Zurich on May 29.

Written by Mark Bisson

Homepage photo: Getty Images

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