Football
Stephan Uersfeld, Germany correspondent 10y

FIFA urged to publicise Michael Garcia report on World Cup corruption

FIFA need to make public the 350-page Michael Garcia report looking into alleged corruption in the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contest, Mark Pieth, the former chairman of FIFA's Independent Governance Committee, has said.

- Carlisle: Smoke but not fire over Qatar

Earlier this month, the governing body of world football received three reports from ethics investigator Michael Garcia and his team after their year-long probe of alleged corruption in the bidding contests for the two upcoming World Cups, which have been awarded to Russia and Qatar respectively.

The reports are set to be examined by FIFA ethics judge Joachim Eckert, who can impose sanctions. However, it is still unclear whether he has the authority to remove hosts or order re-votes.

But the report has not been made public and Pieth has told German broadsheet FAZ that in order to win back lost trust the governing body has to change that.

"It's all-important that FIFA creates trust now. Thus transparency is needed. It's a very delicate issue and has been blown up to such a dimension that in the public the feeling that things are swept under the mat should not arise," Pieth, who ended his stint at FIFA in December 2013, said.

FIFA last week said that only a handful of people will see the report during Eckert's study, which could last as long as the spring of 2015.

"That's headed into the wrong direction. You don't even need to amend the FIFA regulations to publish it," Pieth added. "It would only be about to protect witnesses and blacken out names on some pages. That would not be a problem."

According to media reports, Garcia's findings, which could strip Qatar of the 2022 World Cup, draws on 200,000 pages of evidence.

The 2022 World Cup has also been brought back to the spotlight by FIFA executive board member Theo Zwanziger, who, citing health issues because of the heat in the Gulf State, said that he believes the World Cup will not take place in Qatar.

His statement has since been rejected by Nasser Al Khater, Qatar's executive director of communications, who said: "Qatar will host the FIFA World Cup in 2022, despite comments of FIFA executive committee member Dr. Zwanziger, which reflect his personal opinion and not that of FIFA.

"The only question now is when, not if. Summer or winter, we will be ready. We have proven that a FIFA World Cup in Qatar in the summer is possible with state-of-the-art cooling technology."

Zwanziger is set to leave the FIFA executive committee in May 2015, and could be replaced by the current German FA [DFB] president Wolfgang Niersbach.

In personal talks, Niersbach has indicated that he would be ready, should the DFB chairmanship officially nominate him for election, the German Football League [DFL] president Reinhard Rauball told Sport Bild on Wednesday.

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