The findings of Fifa’s inquiry into allegations of corruption during bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups have been questioned – by the man who conducted the two-year investigation into the claims.
In an unexpected twist, lawyer Michael Garcia says the report “contains numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions”.
The 42-page report cleared both Russia and Qatar, who will host the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, of wrongdoing.
It also accused the English Football Association of flouting bid rules and damaging Fifa’s image.
Fifa, the body that governs world football, welcomed the report and said it brought closure to the damaging episode.
But Garcia’s statement, issued less than four hours after the report was published, reopens the debate about the validity of the bidding process for both the 2018 and 2022 competitions.
It also raises concerns about the work of Hans-Joachim Eckert, Fifa’s independent ethics adjudicator, who wrote the report.
Eckert, a German judge, based his findings on the work of Garcia, who had been appointed by Fifa to conduct an independent investigation into claims of corruption.
Garcia says he now intends to contact Fifa’s appeals committee.
News of Garcia’s attack on its report is likely to come as blow and an embarrassment to Fifa, which has been attempting to address allegations of corruption within its organisation.
It hoped Eckert’s findings would end talk of possible re-votes to decide where the 2018 and 2022 World Cups would be held.
British MP Damien Collins had already labelled the report “a whitewash”,
Collins has campaigned for Fifa reform and in 2011 used Parliamentary privilege to allege that bribes helped secure Qatar the 2022 tournament.
He said those allegations remained unanswered.
“It is a whitewash as it is an attempt to con people that there has been a full and independent investigation when there has not been,” he said.
“The result is that allegations of bribery and serious wrongdoing remain unanswered and they are still suppressing the full report.”
Qatar’s bid team has always denied allegations of corruption, while Alexey Sorokin, the chief of Russia’s 2018 World Cup organising committee, said the country had nothing to hide.
“We were always confident that there could be nothing which would come out from this investigation,” Sorokin told Sky Sports News.
“It’s something Fifa deemed important to do. It was done, we participated, we complied. What more can we do?”
Following the publication of the report, the FA rejected the criticism levelled at it, insisting it had “conducted a transparent bid”.
It was accused of trying to “curry favour” with former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner, who quit his role in 2011 amid bribery allegations.
An FA statement read: “We do not accept any criticism regarding the integrity of England’s bid or any of the individuals involved.”
BBCSPORT
