Child of Fifa official got $2m before Qatar won bid to host 2022 World Cup

Garcia report says former executive committee member thanked Qatar for a transfer of several hundred thousand euros

Asum of $2 million was sent to the 10-year-old daughter of a Fifa official prior to Qatar being awarded the hosting of the 2022 World Cup, according to Bild.

The German daily is publishing from yesterday American independent investigator Michael Garcia’s report into alleged bribery and corruption during the bidding for the hosting of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

In an extract of the article released on Monday evening, the popular tabloid claims to have got hold of the report of more than 400 pages which has never been properly published by world football’s governing body.

According to Bild, in the report Garcia reveals that “a former executive committee member congratulated members of the Qatari federation and thanked them by mail for a transfer of several hundred thousand euros” just after Qatar was awarded the 2022 tournament.

“Two million dollars from an unknown source arrived in the savings account of the 10-yearold daughter of a Fifa member,” add Bild.

The newspaper adds that “three executive members of Fifa with the right to vote went to a party in Rio de Janeiro in a private jet belonging to the Qatari federation before the vote to decide who would host the competition.”

Aspire implicated

The Aspire Academy in Qatar, one of the biggest sports academies in the world, was also “implicated in a decisive manner in the manipulation of Fifa members who had the right to vote,” the paper adds.

Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup in late 2010 and the result of the vote has been the source of enormous controversy ever since.

Following Garcia’s investigation, the adjudicatory chamber of Fifa’s ethics committee noted that there had been suspicious behaviour during the bidding process but not enough to call into question the decision to give Qatar the 2022 finals or Russia the 2018 tournament.

Garcia resigned as head of Fifa’s investigatory body in December 2014 in protest at what he described as Fifa’s “incomplete and erroneous” summary of his report.

A leaked copy of the document kept confidential by Fifa and Switzerland’s attorney general has surfaced.

Garcia’s report was once expected to be explosive and became a holy grail for Fifa critics who thought the votes could be re-run.

Many believe 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.

Most of those who took part in the 2010 vote have since been banned for unethical conduct, indicted on corruption charges by the US Department of Justice, or remain under scrutiny by Swiss federal prosecutors who have 25 ongoing investigations involving more than 170 bank transactions suspected as money laundering.

Still, don’t expect the longheld suspicions to be proven this week.