Football’s world governing body Fifa has released its full report into alleged corruption in the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids.<\/p>\n
It comes after German newspaper Bild published extracts of a leaked copy of the report on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The 2014 report was authored by former Fifa independent ethics investigator Michael Garcia, who quit in protest when the organisation only released a 42-page summary of his document.<\/p>\n
That version cleared Qatar and Russia of corruption allegations but was critical of the English Football Association’s conduct in the bidding process.<\/p>\n
Fifa said its president Gianni Infantino had always intended to release the full document, which has more than 400 pages, but its former ethics chiefs had refused to publish it.<\/p>\n
The former chairmen of the ethics committee, Cornel Borbely and Hans-Joachim Eckert, were replaced in May after completing four-year terms.<\/p>\n
Speaking in October 2014, Eckert said: “Publishing the report in full would actually put the Fifa ethics committee and Fifa itself in a very difficult situation legally.”<\/p>\n
Fifa said it had intended to discuss the release of the report at a meeting next month, but added: “As the document has been illegally leaked to a German newspaper, the new chairpersons have requested the immediate publication of the full report in order to avoid the dissemination of any misleading information.<\/p>\n
“For the sake of transparency, Fifa welcomes the news that this report has now been finally published.”<\/p>\n
Garcia was appointed as Fifa’s independent ethics investigator in 2012 and asked to look into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process following claims of corruption around the bids.<\/p>\n
They included allegations that disgraced Qatari football official Mohamed Bin Hammam made payments totalling $5m (\u00a33m) to football officials in return for their support for the Qatar bid.<\/p>\n
Qatar vehemently denied votes were being bought and said Bin Hammam had not been acting in an official capacity.<\/p>\n
Garcia spent two years investigating the claims and looked into all nine hosting bids – including one by the England FA.<\/p>\n
Russia won the right to host the 2018 World Cup, beating England as well as joint bids by the Netherlands\/Belgium and Spain\/Portugal.<\/p>\n
At the same time, in December 2010, Qatar won the 2022 bid ahead of Australia, Japan, South Korea and the United States.<\/p>\n
Fifa released a 42-page summary of Garcia’s final report in 2014. It cleared Qatar of any wrongdoing, ending any possibility of a re-vote for a new 2022 host.<\/p>\n
However, the report said there were “certain indications of potentially problematic conduct of specific individuals” – though Bin Hammam’s payments were judged to be for his personal political interests, not the 2022 bid.<\/p>\n
Russia, meanwhile, was also cleared of any wrongdoing, though the investigation had “only a limited amount of documents available for review” because the Russian team’s computers had been destroyed.<\/p>\n
The English FA was accused of acting improperly in trying to win votes and flouting bid rules, while Australia too received criticism.<\/p>\n
While Russia and Qatar welcomed the report, the FA baulked at the criticism.<\/p>\n
The man who led the investigation, Garcia, complained Eckert’s precis of his report was “erroneous”.<\/p>\n
Eckert denied that, insisting of his published summary: “A lot of my report was word for word from the Garcia report.”<\/p>\n
Garcia subsequently quit and Fifa’s critics said it showed the shortened, released report had been a “whitewash” and called for the full report to be released.<\/p>\n
Almost three years later, they have got their wish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Football’s world governing body Fifa has released its full report into alleged corruption in the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids. It comes after German newspaper Bild published extracts of a leaked copy of the report on Tuesday. The 2014 report was authored by former Fifa independent ethics investigator Michael Garcia, who quit in protest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":66539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[37613,24020,1026,37614],"yoast_head":"\n