World football governing body FIFA is to release more of a report into allegations of World Cup bidding corruption, after its executives voted unanimously to publish a "legally appropriate version."
To date, only a summary of the report examining allegations of corruption during bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups has been released.
The 42-page document, which cleared both Russia and Qatar of any wrongdoing while lambasting the England 2018 bid, was declared by FIFA as offering “a degree of closure” on the matter, however its conclusions drawn from the full report have been called into question.
Michael Garcia, the US attorney who conducted the 18-month investigation,
issued a statement less than four hours after the summary report’s release saying it "contains numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions". He resigned on Wednesday (17 December), after his appeal against the published summary of his report by fellow Fifa ethics committee chairman Hans-Joachim Eckert was dismissed.
There are currently investigations being carried out into five individuals. Once these inquiries have been concluded, FIFA will publish Garcia’s full 430-page report, although large sections are expected to be redacted to protect witness anonymity.
Having previously attempted to draw a line under the matter, the decision to subsequently publish the report marks a shift in FIFA policy.
Fifa vice-president Jim Boyce – Britain's most senior football official – said Garcia’s resignation marked a new low for the governing body. He added that he’d always been in favour of bringing as much of the report “as is legally possible,” into the public domain.
He was quoted by the BBC as saying: "Until that is done, it's not going to go away. If people have nothing to hide, why are they afraid of something being issued?"
At the centre of the report is the events leading the 2010 bidding vote, which saw Russia win the right to host the 2018 World Cup, while Qatar was awarded the 2022 tournament.
