Fifa bidding probe in chaos

– Fifa’s probe into the controversial bidding race for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups was thrown into turmoil yesterday after its own investigator Michael Garcia complained that a summary of his report misrepresented his conclusions.

Garcia, who carried out an exhaustive investigation into the bidding, slammed an “incomplete and erroneous” version of his report and said he planned to appeal.

Football’s world governing body had earlier cleared Qatar and Russia of corruption and ruled out a re-vote for the tournaments despite widespread allegations of wrongdoing.

Garcia, a former New York federal prosecutor, spent 18 months investigating the controversial World Cup race that ended with the selection of Russia for 2018 and Qatar for 2022.

He issued a statement saying: “Today’s decision by the chairman of the adjudicatory chamber contains numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions detailed in the investigatory chamber’s report. I intend to appeal this decision to the Fifa Appeal Committee.”

Hans-Joachim Eckert, chairperson of the adjudicatory chamber of FIFA’s independent ethics committee, had revealed that the investigation had not yielded evidence of corruption and there would be no re-vote on awarding the tournaments to Qatar and Russia.

The report admitted that even though there had been a series of worrying episodes in the bidding for the 2022 tournament, as well as the 2018 World Cup in Russia, there was not enough evidence to justify reopening the process.

“The report identified certain occurrences that were suited to impair the integrity of the 2018/2022 bidding process,” said the 42-page report. –

I intend to appeal this decision to the FIFA Appeal Committee. Michael Garcia, Fifa investigator