FIFA releases full Garcia report on possible 2018, 2022 World Cup corruption

430-page report finds no evidence of corruption in 2018, 2022 World Cup bids

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND - OCTOBER 13: A FIFA logo next to the entrance during part I of the FIFA Council Meeting 2016 at the FIFA headquarters on October 13, 2016 in Zurich, Switzerland. (Photo by Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images)

ORLANDO, Fla. – After facing allegations that the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids may have been corrupted, FIFA released a full document, labeled the Garcia report, Monday, after German journalist Peter Rossberg obtained a leak of the findings.

Stating that "the report does not provide proof that the World Cup was bought in 2018 or 2022," Rossberg, a reporter for Bild, also says the report and its findings come as no surprise. Below is a translation of his post that was originally in German, explaining some of his thoughts.

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Courtesy Peter Rossberg's Facebook page

The FIFA Garcia report is named after Michael J. Garcia, who served as the former FIFA independent ethics investigator before currently serving as a New York appeals court judge.

With full reports available on Russia, the U.S., England, and many more countries on FIFA's website, FIFA critics may be able to rest easy.

FIFA critics believed there were issues of corruption back in 2010 involving Russia, Qatar and the FIFA executive committee, but reports coming out since, have discredited those theories, according to the report.

But according to an ESPN report, many of the people involved back in the 2010 vote are no longer with the international organization.  Former members have since been banned for "unethical conduct, indicted on corruption charges by the U.S Department of Justice, or remain under scrutiny by Swiss federal prosecutors."

In addition, there are 25 ongoing investigations operated by the Swiss looking into more than 170 bank transactions suspected of money laundering that may still be going on, according to the ESPN report.

The 430-page Garcia report, which was expected to be devastating to FIFA, with the hope of critics being that the votes would happen again for bids, proved to not be an issue. However, the report does show findings of a 2 million Swiss franc payment into an account of the 10-year-old daughter of a FIFA official. 

Garcia said in the ESPN article that at first, FIFA had only published a 42-page summary of his findings, but Garcia said the summary "misrepresented his work."

After "losing confidence in the independence of FIFA's ethics committee," Garcia resigned, according to the ESPN report. However, the work was handed over to Switzerland's attorney general.

Although no wrongdoing was found, Rossberg says that "especially with Qatar, there are many strong indicators which basically don't allow for another conclusion. It's a great general picture about greed, corruption and cover-ups," according to the ESPN article.

 


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