Days after declaring that its investigation into the bidding for soccer’s 2018 and 2022 World Cups had not found any evidence pointing to a corruption of that process, FIFA announced on Tuesday that it was turning over the report from the inquiry to the Swiss authorities because it suspected that its investigators had uncovered criminal activity.
In an interview with FIFA’s website, Hans-Joachim Eckert, the German judge who reviewed the report submitted by the ethics committee’s lead investigator, said he had urged FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter, to file the criminal complaint with Switzerland’s attorney general because, while he had not found enough evidence in the report to call into question the entire bidding process, he had determined that there was “suspected unlawful activity in connection with Switzerland” committed by unidentified people related to the vote.
A FIFA statement said that “in isolated cases, international transfers of assets with connections to Switzerland took place.”
Neither Eckert nor Blatter, who also gave a short interview to FIFA’s website, offered details about what laws might have been broken or how many people were involved. Despite his concerns about criminal activity, Eckert maintained again that “there is insufficient incriminating evidence” to merit a revote or a re-examination of the circumstances that led to the FIFA executive committee’s awarding the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar. Eckert added, however, that “there are indications of potential illegal or irregular conduct in certain areas.”
An intriguing byproduct of Blatter’s decision to follow Eckert’s advice and file the criminal complaint is that it will almost surely increase the number of people with access to the lengthy report submitted by the lead investigator, Michael J. Garcia. Garcia, a former United States attorney who leads the investigatory arm of the ethics committee, worked with his deputy to produce a report that ran more than 400 pages and included some 200,000 pages of evidence.
There have been widespread calls from members of the soccer community, including members of FIFA’s governing executive committee, to make the entire report public. Garcia has said repeatedly that he supports releasing his report as long as redactions are made to protect the identities of key witnesses.
Eckert, on the other hand, has been steadfast in his belief that the report cannot be released publicly because of privacy concerns. In spurning calls for the report’s publication, FIFA said that only four people had seen it in full: Garcia and his deputy, who compiled it, as well as Eckert and his deputy, who reviewed it. Blatter, in his interview on Tuesday, restated his claim that he had not read the report.
Blatter, who has been criticized over the years for the closed nature of FIFA’s dealings, said he viewed cooperation with the Swiss authorities as an example of the organization’s desire for transparency.
“If we had anything to hide, we would hardly be taking this matter to the office of the attorney general,” he said.
It should be noted, though, that Blatter also reaffirmed his belief regarding FIFA’s decision to keep the report hidden from public consumption.
“If FIFA were to publish the report, we would be violating our own association law as well as state law,” Blatter said.
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