FIFA are diseased and corrupt. These people always get away with it
to say about that. Maybe Garcia will do his duty and assist them. He will be no better than those, like Russia, Spain and Lord Triesman, who failed to cooperate with the investigation if he does not. Here is the complication: if Eckert’s reading of Garcia’s report is to be believed, FIFA’s executive committee members voted for Qatar without inducement because it was the best bid. Yet we know it wasn’t the best bid. It was the worst bid. FIFA’s technical assessment committee rated it high risk and football’s entire calendar is now in turmoil trying to accommodate it. The ‘yes’ vote only makes sense if it is corrupt; and if FIFA say it wasn’t corrupt, then we are left with a continuing absence of logic. We are no nearer to understanding why Qatar was regarded as football’s best option in 2022 than we were before Garcia’s investigation began: and it was this mystery it was intended to clear up. Garcia is now appealing FIFA’s report of his report, claiming it is incomplete and erroneous. Why the surprise? The very procedure he must now undergo encapsulates all that is wrong with FIFA’s processes. Garcia’s case will be heard by FIFA’s appeals committee, which is in turn appointed by the FIFA executive committee — this being the executive committee whose shady business Garcia wishes to disclose.
ONE member of the appeals committee is Ahmad Darw of the Madagascan FA, who, it is alleged, solicited an illicit payment from a Qatari official to help with his re-election. Of course there are some, like David Dein, who think English football should work its way inside FIFA, see the good in the organisation, acknowledge the desire for change. He is wrong. The FIFA he fondly believes in doesn’t exist. This is a corrupt, diseased body, in reality no nearer to reform now than it was when Warner stalked its corridors. Yes, they have hunted down the odd bogeyman, usually ones who oppose Blatter, as Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar did, but bigger villains remain. All FIFA’s reading of Garcia’s report proves is that football’s rulers are disgustingly complacent about wrongdoing, still. Even the edited 42-page summary contains some pretty alarming examples of attempts to buy the votes and favour of committee members, but none is considered to have harmed the process or the integrity of FIFA. Russia and Spain, meanwhile, are identified as less than cooperative but escape lightly, as if their silence and subterfuge is of no consequence to the process. Then again, Blatter was found in court to have known of bribes to former executive committee members, yet sails on towards his fifth term. If this is an organisation addressing corruption, one shudders to think what passes for acceptable behind football’s closed doors. Garcia wants the full report published, with sources redacted, but as a shrewd legal mind he should have got that in writing. Ultimately, Blatter didn’t commission Garcia’s investigation because he wanted to, but because he had to, and it is impossible not to imagine his paw prints over what we know of the conclusion, too — even the sentence that supports term limits for a FIFA president and appears to fly in the face of his wishes. Blatter can let this view leak because his congress already rejected it this year, so he knows it won’t happen. It gives Garcia’s report the illusion of independence, while not influencing the fate of the president one iota. Yes, the FA did wrong, but they did wrong because Blatter allowed football’s hierarchy to become peopled with crooks and charlatans, and the hopeful hosts then tried to play their game. All that was correct in yesterday’s announcement was that this corrupt process did not damage the image of FIFA. Quite simply: it is impossible to damage the image of FIFA.