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FIFA whistleblower urges clubs to apply pressure for change

FIFA whistleblower Bonita Mersiades has urged leading European clubs to put pressure on world football's governing body to reform.

Mersiades, head of communications for the Australia 2022 World Cup bid until January 2010, and Phaedra al-Majid -- who worked for the Qatari bid -- spoke to Michael Garcia as he compiled his report into possible corruption during the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

The two said they were "clearly identifiable," although not named, in German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert's summary of the report, which Mersiades said she did not believe would ever be published in its original form. The summary cast doubt on their reliability as witnesses.

FIFA has said that, where legally possible, it will publish the report by Garcia, a U.S. attorney who resigned as FIFA's ethics investigator in December in protest at the handling of his findings.

Mersiades told German sports weekly kicker she wanted "a big European club to go public with the question: Do we need FIFA?" adding: "That's how pressure for a reform process builds.

"Eckert did what [FIFA president Sepp] Blatter wanted -- to say that FIFA did everything right and to claim that there are two women out there who are not trustworthy.

"Before the Garcia report is published completely, it will be rewritten by people at FIFA to bring it in line with Eckert's summary."

In November last year, Mersiades and al-Majid filed a complaint with FIFA, accusing its ethics committee of breaching confidentiality pledges.

But the complaint was dismissed by FIFA's disciplinary committee, which ruled that there were "no grounds" and also said that they were not allowed to go public with their complaints.

"Does that make my statement less credible, like Garcia and Eckert maintain? No. How can two studied lawyers from liberal democracies say such things? That contradicts the freedom of speech and opinion," she said.