Fury at a total whitewash
‘Farce’ inquiry takes heat as Blatter’s lead investigator disowns findings from report
“It’s quite hard to damage the image of FIFA”
FIFA’S brazen whitewash of a report into World Cup corruption came under attack from all quarters yesterday — even from the lead investigator on the inquiry.
As revealed by Sportsmail yesterday, FIFA’s findings on the bidding process for 2018 and 2022 heaped more blame on England’s bid than that of the widely discredited Qataris.
FA chairman Greg Dyke l ed a chorus of damning criticism, calling the probe ‘a joke, a shambles and a complete farce from start to finish’.
FIFA’s own investigator into World Cup corruption attacked the report that was purportedly based on his findings.
Michael Garcia, the American lawyer who led the inquiry into the murky bids for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, disowned the document, authored by FIFA ethics j udge Hans-Joachim Eckert, and launched an appeal against its contents.
Yesterday’s dramatic events sent FIFA’s battered reputation to an all-time low.
Certainly Dyke made it clear the FA will have nothing to do with any FIFA bidding process while Sepp Blatter is president, concentrating instead on forging closer links with UEFA.
The FA also want Garcia’s report published in full.
Senior members of the England 2018 team are ‘highly disturbed’ at the way they have been ‘victimised’ for cooperating with Garcia while some of their rivals, including Spain and Russia, have got away scot-free with blatantly obstructing the probe.
Eckert’s bizarre 42-page judgment cleared Qatar to stage the 2022 World Cup and somehow apportioned more blame to attempts by England’s 2018 bid to gain the support of FIFA’s rogue powerbroker Jack Warner.
Eckert claimed the behaviour of the English bid had ‘damaged the integrity of the bidding process and FIFA’s reputation’.
But in a stinging retort, Garcia issued a statement saying the report ‘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 appeals committee.’
It i s understood Garcia made strong criticisms about many of the 24- strong voting FIFA executive c o mmittee whi c h wer e not mentioned by Eckert.
To add to the pantomime, FIFA said they were unable to respond to Garcia’s bombshell, which effectively accuses Eckert of a cover-up, because they hadn’t received it themselves.
Dyke said: ‘It makes a complete mockery of the process that the prosecutor says the judgment doesn’t reflect what he believed. I’m shocked. It undermines the whole inquiry. If the person doing the investigation is saying: “Actually, what they’re saying isn’t what I said”, then what’s the point of it?’
Dyke still has plenty of questions over why Eckert did not reveal new information about the suspicions surrounding Qatar’s victory, even though the tournament will have to be moved to winter because of the unbearable heat in summer.
He said: ‘The Eckert judgment said all the bids were assessed. The one that was the highest risk was Qatar. I still don’t understand why the 2022 World Cup was given to Qatar when it was quite clear FIFA’s own technical committee said it would be high risk.’
Asked if the FA had damaged FIFA’s reputation as Eckert had judged, Dyke offered the withering response: ‘I think it’s quite hard to damage the image of FIFA. What it tells you is that the people who cooperated the most got criticised and those who didn’t cooperate at all didn’t get anything. The FA behaved properly.’
The England 2018 team answered every question from Garcia and supplied emails and documents. This willingness to cooperate resulted in them being attacked for trying to curry favour with the now disgraced former FIFA executive vice-president Warner.
Eckert reprimanded England for finding a job for a friend of the Trinidadian, hosting a Caribbean Football Union dinner, setting up a training camp for Trinidad and Tobago’s Under-20 team and offering help to the Warner-owned Joe Public Football Team.
Russia, on the other hand, escaped censure. They had not allowed Garcia into their country and provided minimal email and documentary evidence. They claimed the computers they had used during their successful 2018 campaign were leased and later returned to the owner, where the data was destroyed.
The Spanish/Portuguese bid also escaped any criticism from Eckert after they refused to cooperate in any way with the inquiry, even though Spanish FA president Angel Villa Llona sits on the FIFA executive.
Simon Johnson, chief operating officer for England 2018, said: ‘This is a politically-motivated whitewash with pre-ordained conclusions. And we have been singled out for being as helpful as we could and not hiding anything.’
Tory MP Damian Collins said: ‘It is a whitewash. This is FIFA investigating itself and, not surprisingly, returning a verdict of not guilty.’
Eckert’s judgment also concluded that Qatari Mohamed Bi n Hammam’s cash-for-votes tactics, which has seen him banned for life from football, were to do with his aborted bid for the FIFA presidency rather than Qatar’s World Cup bid.
Dyke said: ‘The question about Qatar is all about Mr Bin Hammam. They’ve come to the conclusion he was representing his own interests. I still find that difficult to take.’
AS A judge of ethics and presumed man of principle, Hans-Joachim Eckert should be ashamed. So should Michael Garcia, who is supposed to be a smart guy and has allowed himself to be used then publicly humiliated. FIFA, obviously, are beyond shaming. And England’s Football Association? Yes, they should be ashamed. They should hang their heads for ever getting involved with a man as corrupt as Jack Warner, no matter his power or promises. They should be ashamed for playing the game as it was back then, no matter the worth of the prize. They sold out English football, they sold out those who tried to expose FIFA’s corruption and they got their just deserts yesterday — sold out themselves by the very people they were trying to schmooze and impress. Lord Triesman and his sorry band, far from being the shrewd political movers and shakers of their imaginations, were left as the hapless patsies in the latest FIFA sting — a despicable whitewash and score-settling exercise masquerading as a far-reaching investigation. The tragedy for football’s cynics is how often they are proved right. Sceptics expected nothing from the investigation into FIFA corruption and got precisely that. Pessimists expected the report to make no difference to the travesty that is Qatar 2022 and it did not. Misanthropists said those making the greatest noise about wrongdoing in the bidding process — England and Australia — were likely to fare worst and that is how the news unfolded. Reading Eckert’s appraisal of Garcia’s report felt like an echo of the final scenes of Roman Polanski’s film Chinatown. The girl is shot dead, the incestuous rapist monster gets away with it and the private detective is left looking on, horrified and powerless. ‘Forget it, Jake,’ he is told. ‘It’s Chinatown.’ And FIFA is Chinatown, too. The monsters get away with it. The good guys get offed or are rendered impotent. The FA were wrong to get into bed with Warner but never forget who tucked him in every night. Sepp Blatter could have addressed the corruption and corrupt individuals in his midst years ago. He didn’t. He promoted them, served beside them, was told of their crimes and turned a blind eye. Warner was as good as his right-hand man. And he didn’t know? Hell, everyone knew. And the Qatar World Cup has never appeared more bent than it does this morning. FIFA wish to move on. According to CNN, the Federal Bureau of Investigation may have something