Garcia quits as FIFA corruption investigator

File photo of Michael Garcia. (AFP/Fabrice Coffrini)

NEW YORK: Former US federal prosecutor Michael Garcia on Wednesday (Dec 17) resigned as chief corruption investigator for FIFA after football's governing body rejected his appeal against the handling of his report into the votes for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Garcia said he had found "serious and wide-ranging issues" in the bidding for the 2018 World Cup won by Russia and the 2022 tournament to be held in Qatar. "The lack of leadership on these issues within FIFA leads me to conclude that my role in this process is at an end," Garcia said in a statement announcing his resignation.

Garcia quit one day after the governing body rejected his appeal over the followup to his 18 month inquiry. Garcia had complained that a summary of his report released by FIFA's top judge Hans-Joachim Eckert was "incomplete and erroneous."

Eckert had said there was no evidence of corruption and that there should be no new vote for the 2018 World Cup to be held in Russia and the 2022 tournament in Qatar, which has faced repeated corruption allegations.

The departure of the top US lawyer increases pressure on the FIFA leadership one day ahead of an executive committee meeting to decide whether Garcia's report should be released in full. Garcia said in the statement the climate at FIFA has changed for the worse in recent months.

He said that for two years after being named head of the FIFA ethics committee investigatory chamber in July 2012, "I felt that the Ethics Committee was making real progress in advancing ethics enforcement at FIFA. In recent months, that changed." Garcia reaffirmed that the report he submitted "identified serious and wide-ranging issues with the bidding and selection process."

'TRANSPARENCY' CRISIS

The lawyer complained about the "insufficient transparency" shown by FIFA and Eckert's "selection and omission of material from the report" he prepared. Eckert released a 42 page summary of Garcia's 350 page report in November.

Garcia said that his presentation to the FIFA appeal committee had said that "when viewed in the context of the report it purported to summarize, no principled approach could justify the Eckert decision's edits, omissions, and additions."

FIFA's appeal committee said that Garcia's appeal was "not admissible" because Eckert's summary was "not a decision." The investigator said his appeal had been rejected on procedural grounds without answering his concerns. Garcia could appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) but he said this "would not be practicable."

"No independent governance committee, investigator, or arbitration panel can change the culture of an organization. And while the November 13, 2014, Eckert decision made me lose confidence in the independence of the Adjudicatory Chamber, it is the lack of leadership on these issues within FIFA that leads me to conclude that my role in this process is at an end," Garcia declared.

The FIFA executive meets in Marrakech, Morocco, on Thursday and Friday to discuss the Garcia report. It has faced a storm of calls, including from UEFA president Michel Platini, to release more details. FIFA president Sepp Blatter and Eckert have said the report cannot be released for legal reasons.