Police probe World Cup bidding report
Police were last night scouring the explosive report into the awarding of the next two World Cups for evidence of criminal activity on British soil after it was finally published by Fifa.
The Serious Fraud Office confirmed it was “reviewing” the socalled Garcia report following its release on Tuesday afternoon as part of its inquiries into sport’s biggest corruption scandal.
The SFO had tried in vain to obtain a copy of the 430-page document ever since it was written three years ago by Fifa’s former chief investigator, Michael J Garcia, and was subsequently handed over to US and Swiss law enforcement.
Confirming the SFO had yet to launch its own criminal investigation but stood ready to assist those in other territories, a spokesman told The Daily Telegraph: “The SFO is reviewing the Garcia report.”
The SFO declined to comment on the status of its inquiries into potential “money-laundering” by senior officials, which were disclosed by its director, David Green, to parliament in October 2015, in between a pair of Fbi-orchestrated dawn raids and arrests in Zurich.
Green confirmed at the time that the SFO had obtained some “new information” about allegations of corruption at football’s world governing body. He told a Culture, Media and Sport select committee hearing: “We are still examining issues around possible money-laundering, and I won’t be able to go into detail as new information has come to us quite recently.”
He suggested that some of that information related to a payment of 500,000 Australian dollars (£236,000) to disgraced former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner by Australia’s bid team for the 2022 World Cup finals.
The payment is analysed at length in the Garcia report, which concludes: “The record provides significant evidence that the A$500,000 was paid with the intention of influencing Mr Warner’s World Cup vote.”
Meanwhile, those involved in England’s 2018 World Cup bid last night branded the Garcia report a “joke”. Two sources claimed they and Australia had condemned themselves to a damning verdict by cooperating fully with his inquiry, whereas others who refused to do so or failed to retain potential evidence were let off lightly.
Both admitted it made “horrible reading” for England’s bid, particularly the detail on the lengths officials went to to court Warner. One of them added: “Without Jack Warner, we had no chance of winning. So what do you do?”