Prince and former PM in Fifa report
The duke of Cambridge and David Cameron last night became embroiled in a row over corruption in football as the full extent of England’s failed attempt to stage the 2018 World Cup was made public.
THE DUKE of Cambridge and David Cameron have become embroiled in a row over corruption in football as the full extent of England’s failed attempt to stage the 2018 World Cup was made public.
The former prime minister and Prince William were at a meeting during which a voteswapping deal between England and South Korea was discussed, according to an official report released last night. The long-awaited Fifa report has disclosed the lengths to which England’s football bosses went to court Fifa executives, many of them now discredited, as they sought to secure votes for England’s 2018 bid.
At one point, it was reported, officials discussed the possibility of arranging a meeting with the Queen for one Fifa representative whose vote could have helped England.
The England 2018 World Cup bid team was found to have “accommodated or at least attempted to satisfy the improper request” of Fifa executive committee members, including former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner, by the Garcia report.
Fifa’s long-awaited report into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process was published by football’s world governing body.
The Football Association had lobbied to bring the World Cup to England in 2018 but was unsuccessful after being eliminated in the first round when receiving only two votes. The tournament went to Russia while Qatar secured the 2022 finals, with both decisions reached on December 2, 2010.
According to the report produced by Fifa’s then-chief ethics investigator Michael Garcia in 2014, England 2018 “provided full and valuable co-operation in establishing the facts and circumstances of this case”, with witnesses made available for interview and documents produced on request. However, the report also identified “conduct by England 2018 that may not have met the standards set out in the FCE (Fifa code of ethics) or the bid rules”.
It adds that the English bid team’s “culpability is mitigated by the fact that these issues were uncovered largely as a result of its co-operation”.
Warner had been a longstanding member of the Fifa executive committee, but became embroiled in corruption allegations before being provisionally suspended by the Fifa ethics committee, then subsequently arrested and charged in the United States of America as part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into money-laundering.
In 2015, Warner was banned from taking part in any footballrelated activity for life.
At the time the England 2018 bid was canvassing support, however, the influence of Warner was clear. The Fifa report stated: “According to (England 2018) bid team CEO Andy Anson, Mr Warner was one of three executive committee members – along with Mohamed Bin Hammam and Issa Hayatou – who ‘had a disproportion( ate) amount of power in terms of voting. You know, they really did control blocks of votes, and so if you didn’t have them backing you, then you really didn’t have much of a bid in the first place.’”
The report added: “Warner sought to exploit that perception of his power, showering England’s bid team with inappropriate requests.” The Garcia report also examined vote “collusion” involving Chung Mong-Joon of South Korea and Geoff Thompson, who replaced Lord Triesman as chairman of England 2018. It detailed a meeting at a hotel in Zurich, with Prince William, the FA’s president, and then British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Warner sought to exploit that perception of his power. The Fifa report revealed last night.