Football: Garcia slams Fifa findings

Michael Garcia will now appeal to Fifa against the report. Photo / Getty

Football's world governing body Fifa has been thrown into chaos after the lawyer who led their controversial investigation into the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals denounced the Fifa report into his findings.

Michael J Garcia, the American who spent 18 months on the investigation, said Fifa's abbreviated 44-page report by the German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert "contains numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions detailed in the investigatory chamber's report".

Garcia will now appeal to Fifa against the report. However, the 14-strong Fifa appeals committee have close links to the governing body and the likelihood of them finding against Eckert's report is slim. It seems Garcia's only option would be to publish his investigation independently.

The development was part of a dramatic day on which Eckert's report, released at 9am, heavily criticised the English Football Association's 2018 bid team while exonerating Qatar's controversial 2022 bid.

In response, FA chairman Greg Dyke attacked the contents of the report and called for publication of Garcia's full investigation.

"Questions still need to be answered," Dyke said. "If you read that report it says all the bids were assessed. The one that was the highest risk was Qatar and they won, and it doesn't take us any further forward on why they won.

"I still don't understand why the 2022 World Cup was given to Qatar when it was quite clear from Fifa's own technical committee that said it would be 'high risk'. I don't understand it any more than I understood it then."

Fifa find themselves no closer to a resolution to a toxic chapter in their turbulent history.

Despite corruption allegations having been made against Qatar, the report found nothing materially wrong with the Gulf state's bid to land the 2022 finals. Ultimately, the report cleared the eight bidding nations for the two tournaments of any major wrongdoing. The Spain-Portugal 2018 joint bid, thought not to have responded to Garcia's investigation, was not even mentioned.

In particular, the actions of Mohamed bin Hammam, once a Fifa vice-president, and formerly Qatar's most senior football official who is now banned for life by the governing body, were judged to be unconnected to his country's bid.

Eckert report

Australia 2022
Directed Government money to projects with links to Fifa ExCo members while FFA funds "co-mingled" with Jack Warner's personal account.

Belgium/Netherlands 2018
Barely more than a footnote.

England 2018
Accommodated Warner's "inappropriate requests". Lord Triesman criticised for refusing to repeat claims to Commons Select Committee.

Japan 2022
Might have gone over the top on gifts to ExCo wives.

Korea 2022
Could have created conflict of interest for ExCo by proposing to create a "global football fund" worth $777m.

Qatar 2022
Concerns over Mohamed bin Hammam, hosting Brazil versus Argentina in 2010 and sponsoring African congress.

Russia 2018
Computers used by bid team were destroyed and "gmail" addresses now inaccessible. Cleared on available evidence.

Spain/Portugal 2018
No mention but one bid was "particularly uncooperative".

US 2022
Suggestions of collusion with other bid committees behind their decision to drop out the running for the 2018 World Cup bid. No evidence forthcoming to suggest any wrongdoing and cleared.

- Independent