FIFA publishes Garcia report

SOCHI, Russia — FIFA on Tuesday published an American investigator’s report into the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, acting, it said, “for the sake of transparency.”

The decision to publish the report, which had been kept secret for more than two years, details bribes and vote-trading in the bidding process, and came a day after a German newspaper revealed that it had obtained a copy and planned to publish the report’s details.

Fresh disclosures of possible ethics violations in the bidding processes for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were expected to emerge after the newspaper, Bild, revealed on Monday that it had obtained a copy of the previously unreleased, 430-page report.

The report, compiled by Michael J. Garcia, a former U.S. attorney who had served as FIFA’s chief ethics investigator, detailed the findings of a months-long examination of the voting procedures — widely reported to have been tainted by corruption — that awarded the two World Cup tournaments on the same day in 2010.

The report verifies the broad conclusions of a summary of Garcia’s work published by FIFA in November 2014.

A Russia bid backed by Vladimir Putin gave limited cooperation to Garcia’s team which found no evidence of undue influence. Putin met six of 22 FIFA voters before the December 2010 elections.

Qatar’s ultimate victory over the United States tested FIFA’s bid rules to the limit. The bid team utilized a full range of lavishly funded state and sports agencies to help influence the vote, along with advisers who raised Garcia’s suspicions.

Garcia’s report was once a holy grail for FIFA critics who hoped it would be explosive and force a re-run of the World Cup hosting votes.

Many believed bid leaders in Russia and Qatar must have engaged in wrongdoing to earn the votes of a FIFA executive committee lineup in 2010 that has since been widely discredited.

“Bid teams operated in an environment where a number of (voters) did not hesitate to exploit a system that in certain respects did not bind them to the same rules applicable to bid teams,” Garcia wrote, noting that some FIFA officials “sought to obtain personal favors or benefits.”

Some of those same FIFA officials have since been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in a widespread racketeering case that is ongoing.

Garcia’s team did not have the evidence-gathering powers of a criminal probe and it was clear they would be hampered even before starting a globe-trotting 2013-14 investigation.

His full report details how FIFA voters refused to be interviewed, bid teams such as Russia and Spain were evasive, and potential key witnesses could not be tracked down.

Garcia’s work also has been overtaken since he delivered it to FIFA’s then-ethics judge in September 2014.

The 42-page summary written by German judge Hans Joachim Eckert was published two months later and disputed by Garcia. Their public falling out prompted FIFA to pass the dossier and supporting evidence to Switzerland’s attorney general for review.

The true significance of Garcia’s work might only be seen once Swiss authorities have completed their work. It started with suspected money laundering linked to the World Cup bids and extended to other areas of FIFA business.

Around 25 investigations have been launched, the Swiss federal prosecution office said this month, using more than 170 suspect bank transactions as evidence.

Swiss investigators have shared evidence in recent years with the FBI and U.S. prosecutors, who have indicted or taken guilty pleas from more than 40 football and marketing officials.

Russia has repeatedly denied wrongdoing since 2010, though the report confirmed that leased computers used by Russia’s bid campaign were later destroyed.

Staffers’ email accounts were never retrieved from Google for Garcia’s deputy who oversaw the Russia section of a nine-candidate investigation. Russia had previously banned Garcia from the country over his prosecution of a Russian arms dealer in the U.S.

Qatari organizers of the 2022 tournament have also consistently denied wrongdoing. They declined to comment Tuesday.

FIFA forced publication of the Garcia Report on a rest day at the Confederations Cup — the rehearsal tournament in Russia to test its readiness for the 2018 World Cup.

“For the sake of transparency, FIFA welcomes the news that this report has now been finally published,” world football’s governing body said in a statement.