The Fifa judge Hans-Joachim Eckert has claimed he was surprised by criticism from his ethics committee colleague Michael Garcia over his report into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding processes and again refused calls to publish it in full.
As the confusion and chaos caused by Garcia publicly disowning Eckert’s 42-page summary of his 430-page report intensified, two members of Fifa’s executive committee repeated their calls for publication. The Concacaf president, Jeffrey Webb, and Sunil Gulati, who led the US bid for the 2022 World Cup, laid bare the tensions within Fifa’s executive committee. The topic was the subject of a row at the last executive committee meeting in Zurich before Eckert’s summary emerged.
“Given the disagreement between the two chairmen of the investigatory and adjudicatory chambers of the ethics committee and to ensure complete transparency we believe the full report conducted by the Fifa ethics committee into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups should be made public as soon as possible,” said the pair in a joint statement.
“This can be done with appropriate redaction to protect any confidentiality required by the Fifa Code of Ethics. Providing the entire independent report for inspection is in the best interest of the game and Fifa.”
Garcia, a former attorney for the southern district of New York, was dismayed by the way his report and conclusions were summarised by Eckert and said the document contained “numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts”.
Eckert, an eminent German judge who had been engaged in a behind-the-scenes dispute with Garcia over how much of the report should be made public, said Garcia had not told him of his concerns. “Usually you would first speak to each other internally if you don’t like something,” he said on Friday, adding that he had not been able to speak to Garcia.
Eckert’s summary said there was not enough evidence of wrongdoing to justify reopening the process and effectively cleared Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup despite listing several areas of concern. Garcia’s deputy, Cornel Borbély, who conducted the investigation of Russia because the US attorney is banned from entering the country, was unable to investigate emails concerning the bid because the 2018 hosts said they had been deleted. Eckert’s summary also criticised attempts by England and Australia to curry favour with Fifa executive committee members but failed to mention the Spain and Portugal bid at all because they proffered little information.
Garcia, who wanted to see his full report published with redactions to protect sources, has reported Eckert to Fifa’s appeals committee, which is appointed by the Fifa executive committee. Fifa acknowledged receipt of his intention to appeal on Friday evening.
Sepp Blatter, Fifa’s president, has repeatedly pointed to the twin chamber ethics committee – divided into an investigatory arm headed by Garcia and an adjudicatory arm headed by Eckert – as evidence of his commitment to reform in the wake of a barrage of criticism that accompanied his re-election in 2011.
Eckert said he found Garcia’s intervention surprising, despite an ongoing dispute between them over the form in which the report should be published.
“A lot of my report was word for word from the Garcia report,” he told the BBC, adding that he could not publish Garcia’s report in full under Swiss law. “I don’t think that’s possible because I have to respect the rights of confidentiality for continental law. I can’t do it in total even by the Fifa code of ethics. I will not do it.”
Sources on the England 2018 bid rebutted the criticisms in Eckert’s summary, saying that a £35,000 dinner for Caribbean officials had been specifically cleared by Fifa and that a part-time job found for an associate of Jack Warner’s was an unpaid work experience position.
They also pointed out that they refused Warner’s demands for development money and to purchase World Cup TV rights on his behalf.
