Questions About FIFA Transparency as Corruption Report Kept Secret

(ATR) Sepp Blatter says a report into allegations of corruption in the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contests will not be made public.

On Friday, the FIFA president told a press conference wrapping up a two-day Executive Committee meeting that the report by the federation’s chief investigator, Michael Garcia, will not be published.

Despite five members of the FIFA Executive Committee breaking ranks and urging FIFA to publish the 350-page dossier that makes recommendations to take action against "certain individuals", Blatter said no ExCo member at Friday’s meeting had demanded its publication.

Asked about the issue that continues to stalk Blatter amid criticism of FIFA’s transparency, the Swiss referred questions to FIFA’s director of legal affairs Marco Villiger.

He insisted that "confidentiality" was enshrined in the Code of Ethics to protect whistleblowers and others who might not otherwise have cooperated with Garcia’s 18-month probe.

However, Blatter gave an ambiguous answer when asked if he wanted details of Garcia’s report published.

"Absolutely," he said, "and it’s not only from today. We started specifically in 2011 from transparency with our new committees. But on the other hand we are bound by the regulations which have been accepted."

Blatter and Villiger both said that FIFA’s independent adjudicatory chamber, chaired by German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, would have the final decision. Even Garcia has demanded the report be made public in a statement issued on Wednesday.

But Blatter said FIFA would know at the beginning of November, following Eckert’s analysis of Garcia’s dossier, if the German would allow any of it to enter the public realm. Eckert has already stated his opposition to publication of the bidding report. And he has said he won’t announce any verdict on possible sanctions for FIFA ExCo members or other individuals involved in the December 2010 World Cup vote until April.

Under pressure from reporters to explain why FIFA and its leader Blatter lacked the will to publish, Villiger said it was the responsibility of Eckert’s independent ethics chamber to make a decision "not up to the ExCo" to lift the restriction on publication, if the confidentiality of 75 witnesses had been guaranteed. "This is completely against the code," he said.

Written by Mark Bisson.

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