FIFA were in turmoil on Wednesday after their World Cup corruption investigator quit in protest at the systematic cover-up of his own report. Michael Garcia’s resignation statement could not have been more damning. The New York lawyer accused FIFA — and especially their ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert — of a wholesale whitewash of the murky Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 World Cup bid campaigns. Garcia’s bombshell plunged world football’s wholly discredited ruling body into yet another crisis. UEFA president Michel Platini was the first to react, calling the sorry saga a ‘new failure for FIFA’. Michael Garcia has resigned from FIFA's ethics committee and cited a 'lack of leadership' Garcia alleged that FIFA had not only swept his findings under the carpet but tried to silence him by reporting him to their own disciplinary committee for speaking out. He also accused Eckert of having no independence and claims FIFA’s ingrained culture of self-preservation under Sepp Blatter meant it was impossible to bring about change. Garcia said: ‘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. No independent governance committee, investigator or arbitration panel can change the culture of an organisation.’ And Garcia, who was head of FIFA’s ethics investigatory arm, went as far as saying about his colleague Eckert’s conclusions: ‘When viewed in the context of the report it purported to summarise, no principled approach could justify the Eckert decision’s edits, omissions and additions.’ He added that he had ‘lost confidence in the independence of the adjudicatory chamber’. Garcia's report was only published as a summary by FIFA, something Garcia himself quickly denounced . Garcia believes there has been a massive cover-up which he also fears will be the last word on the 2018 and 2022 bids. He chose to resign on the eve of FIFA’s executive committee meeting in Marrakech, which is due to vote on making his full report public, albeit with redactions where there are issues of confidentiality. Clearly, he believes there is no chance of this happening, especially as the FIFA appeals committee earlier this week turned down his complaint about Eckert’s ‘numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of facts and conclusions’. His appeal was dismissed on the bizarre grounds that Eckert’s summary was not legally binding. The timing of his exit, along with his incendiary comments, now puts huge pressure on the 26-strong ExCo to vote for full publication. The move to publish was unlikely to have received the necessary majority before Garcia’s intervention but his views might have changed a few minds. Russia, Qatar and England were accused of breaking rules during the 2018 and 2022 bids in the report . JULY 2012 . FIFA appoint US lawyer Garcia and German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert to their Ethics Committee. Garcia is brought in to investigate bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. September 2014 . Garcia submits his 350-page report. Eckert says it will not be made public, with only his summary published. OCTOBER 2014 . Garcia, among others, calls for the report to be published in full and says of FIFA: ‘(The) investigation and adjudication process operates in most parts unseen and unheard... (it) might be appropriate for an intelligence agency but not for an ethics compliance process in an international sports institution.’ NOVEMBER 2014 . Eckert publishes his summary, which clears Russia and Qatar of corruption, but claims England had undermined the integrity of bidding during their 2018 bid campaign. Garcia says the findings contain ‘erroneous representations ’, and says he will appeal. DECEMBER 2014 . FIFA dismiss Garcia’s complaint to their Appeal Committee. Garcia resigns from the Ethics Committee. Garcia, who was appointed by FIFA to probe the two World Cup bid campaigns in July 2012, announced through his law firm Kirkland & Ellis: ‘For the first two years I felt that the ethics committee was making real progress. But in recent months that changed. ‘The report myself and deputy Cornel Borbely submitted identified serious and wide-ranging issues with the bidding and selection process. ‘Soon after, Hans-Joachim Eckert indicated only limited information would be made public. Concerned that insufficient transparency would not serve FIFA’s interests, I issued a public statement calling on the FIFA ExCo to authorise appropriate publication. ‘The ExCo took no action on this subject other than to refer me to the disciplinary committee for violating the ethics code through my public comments about publication and watches given to certain football officials.’ Garcia and Hans-Joachim Eckert pictured together earlier this year at FIFA headquarters in Switzerland . The disciplinary committee, not surprisingly, rejected FIFA’s complaint against their investigator. Garcia, who will not take his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, had a final swipe at FIFA’s tarnished leadership. He said: ‘It now appears that at least for the foreseeable future, the Eckert decision will stand as the final word on the 2018/2022 World Cup bidding process. ‘And while the 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 my role in this process is at an end.’ However the prosecutions launched by Garcia against five senior football officials — including German great Franz Beckenbauer and FIFA ExCo members Angel Maria Villar of Spain, Thailand’s Worawi Makudi and Michel D’Hooghe of Belgium — can still be carried on by Garcia’s deputy Borbely. FIFA President Sepp Blatter (right) hands over the World Cup trophy to Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani . Meanwhile Domenico Scala, chairman of the compliance committee, has the role of deciding today what portions of Garcia’s work the ExCo should see. Prince Ali of Jordan, an advocate of reform who was the first inside the FIFA ExCo to call for the report to be published, said last night: ‘It’s a shame that we have lost Michael Garcia, for whom we had tremendous respect. It was a shock to hear and he must have done it for a reason. It is emblematic of some of the challenges FIFA have.’ FIFA’s British vice-president Jim Boyce said: ‘I am totally shocked. The ethics committee was our most important group.’ For the first two years after my July 2012 appointment as independent chairman of the FIFA Ethics Committee's Investigatory Chamber, I felt that the Ethics Committee was making real progress in advancing ethics enforcement at FIFA. In recent months, that changed. On September 5, 2014, I and Cornel Borbely, the deputy chair of the Investigatory Chamber, sent a 'Report on the Inquiry into the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup Bidding Process' (the 'Report') to the FIFA Ethics Committee's Adjudicatory Chamber. The Report identified serious and wide-ranging issues with the bidding and selection process. (Mr Borbely also filed separate reports from his inquiries into the activities of the bid teams from Russia and the United States.) Soon after, the chairman of the Adjudicatory Chamber, Hans-Joachim Eckert, indicated publicly that only limited information from the Report would be made public. Concerned that insufficient transparency would not serve FIFA's interests, I issued a public statement calling on the FIFA Executive Committee to authorise the appropriate publication of the Report. The Executive Committee took no action on this subject during its September 2014 meetings - other than to refer me to the FIFA Disciplinary Committee for allegedly violating the Code of Ethics through my public comments, namely, my public request that the Executive Committee authorise appropriate publication of the Report and the on-the-record statement Mr Borbely and I released concerning watches given to certain football officials. The chairman of the Disciplinary Committee, Claudio Sulser, ultimately rejected the Executive Committee's referral. On November 13, 2014, Mr Eckert issued a 42-page 'Statement of the Chairman of the Adjudicatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee on the Report on the Inquiry into the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup Bidding Process prepared by the Investigatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee' (the 'Eckert Decision'). In a cover letter, Mr Eckert described the statement as his 'findings, including certain descriptions of the contents of the Investigatory Chamber's report.' The issues raised by Mr Eckert's selection and omission of material from the Report, and his additional comments, went far beyond the initial transparency concerns. As my public statement at the time explained, the Eckert Decision contained 'numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of facts and conclusions.' Accordingly, I appealed. A brief I filed with the FIFA Appeal Committee on November 24, 2014, outlined the Eckert Decision's most serious failings. Among other points, the brief explained why, 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. Yesterday's decision by the Appeal Committee declined to address these points. Instead, the Appeal Committee rejected my appeal on procedural grounds, concluding that 'it is not necessary for the FIFA Appeals Committee to enter into considerations on the substance of the appeal.' The Appeal Committee found that the Eckert Decision was 'merely a personal opinion on the Report' and had 'no legally binding effect whatsoever.' It reached this conclusion even though, under Article 36 of the Code of Ethics, only 'final decisions' may be made public, as the Eckert Decision, which was published on FIFA's website, obviously was. The Appeal Committee also overlooked the Eckert Decision's self-described 'findings,' including one stating that 'the evaluation of the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cups bidding process is closed for the FIFA Ethics Committee.' FIFA President Blatter recently reaffirmed that 'finding' during an interview published by FIFA, stating: 'Furthermore, there is no change to Judge Eckert's statement that the investigation into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups is concluded.' I disagree with the Appeal Committee's decision. It now appears that, at least for the foreseeable future, the Eckert Decision will stand as the final word on the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup bidding process. While the Appeal Committee's decision notes that further appeal may be taken to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, I have concluded that such a course of action would not be practicable in this case. No independent governance committee, investigator, or arbitration panel can change the culture of an organisation. 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. Accordingly, effective today, December 17, 2014, I am resigning as independent chairman of the Investigatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee.
Michael Garcia has resigned from the FIFA ethics committee in protest .
The American lawyer was unhappy with the way his findings were presented by German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert .
Garcia appealed against findings which cleared Qatar and Russia to host 2022 and 2018 World Cups .
He cited a 'lack of leadership' as a reason for quitting the committee .
FIFA were in turmoil on Wednesday after their World Cup corruption investigator quit in protest at the systematic cover-up of his own report. Michael Garcia’s resignation statement could not have been more damning. The New York lawyer accused FIFA — and especially their ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert — of a wholesale whitewash of the murky Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 World Cup bid campaigns. Garcia’s bombshell plunged world football’s wholly discredited ruling body into yet another crisis. UEFA president Michel Platini was the first to react, calling the sorry saga a ‘new failure for FIFA’. Michael Garcia has resigned from FIFA's ethics committee and cited a 'lack of leadership' Garcia alleged that FIFA had not only swept his findings under the carpet but tried to silence him by reporting him to their own disciplinary committee for speaking out. He also accused Eckert of having no independence and claims FIFA’s ingrained culture of self-preservation under Sepp Blatter meant it was impossible to bring about change. Garcia said: ‘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. No independent governance committee, investigator or arbitration panel can change the culture of an organisation.’ And Garcia, who was head of FIFA’s ethics investigatory arm, went as far as saying about his colleague Eckert’s conclusions: ‘When viewed in the context of the report it purported to summarise, no principled approach could justify the Eckert decision’s edits, omissions and additions.’ He added that he had ‘lost confidence in the independence of the adjudicatory chamber’. Garcia's report was only published as a summary by FIFA, something Garcia himself quickly denounced . Garcia believes there has been a massive cover-up which he also fears will be the last word on the 2018 and 2022 bids. He chose to resign on the eve of FIFA’s executive committee meeting in Marrakech, which is due to vote on making his full report public, albeit with redactions where there are issues of confidentiality. Clearly, he believes there is no chance of this happening, especially as the FIFA appeals committee earlier this week turned down his complaint about Eckert’s ‘numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of facts and conclusions’. His appeal was dismissed on the bizarre grounds that Eckert’s summary was not legally binding. The timing of his exit, along with his incendiary comments, now puts huge pressure on the 26-strong ExCo to vote for full publication. The move to publish was unlikely to have received the necessary majority before Garcia’s intervention but his views might have changed a few minds. Russia, Qatar and England were accused of breaking rules during the 2018 and 2022 bids in the report . JULY 2012 . FIFA appoint US lawyer Garcia and German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert to their Ethics Committee. Garcia is brought in to investigate bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. September 2014 . Garcia submits his 350-page report. Eckert says it will not be made public, with only his summary published. OCTOBER 2014 . Garcia, among others, calls for the report to be published in full and says of FIFA: ‘(The) investigation and adjudication process operates in most parts unseen and unheard... (it) might be appropriate for an intelligence agency but not for an ethics compliance process in an international sports institution.’ NOVEMBER 2014 . Eckert publishes his summary, which clears Russia and Qatar of corruption, but claims England had undermined the integrity of bidding during their 2018 bid campaign. Garcia says the findings contain ‘erroneous representations ’, and says he will appeal. DECEMBER 2014 . FIFA dismiss Garcia’s complaint to their Appeal Committee. Garcia resigns from the Ethics Committee. Garcia, who was appointed by FIFA to probe the two World Cup bid campaigns in July 2012, announced through his law firm Kirkland & Ellis: ‘For the first two years I felt that the ethics committee was making real progress. But in recent months that changed. ‘The report myself and deputy Cornel Borbely submitted identified serious and wide-ranging issues with the bidding and selection process. ‘Soon after, Hans-Joachim Eckert indicated only limited information would be made public. Concerned that insufficient transparency would not serve FIFA’s interests, I issued a public statement calling on the FIFA ExCo to authorise appropriate publication. ‘The ExCo took no action on this subject other than to refer me to the disciplinary committee for violating the ethics code through my public comments about publication and watches given to certain football officials.’ Garcia and Hans-Joachim Eckert pictured together earlier this year at FIFA headquarters in Switzerland . The disciplinary committee, not surprisingly, rejected FIFA’s complaint against their investigator. Garcia, who will not take his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, had a final swipe at FIFA’s tarnished leadership. He said: ‘It now appears that at least for the foreseeable future, the Eckert decision will stand as the final word on the 2018/2022 World Cup bidding process. ‘And while the 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 my role in this process is at an end.’ However the prosecutions launched by Garcia against five senior football officials — including German great Franz Beckenbauer and FIFA ExCo members Angel Maria Villar of Spain, Thailand’s Worawi Makudi and Michel D’Hooghe of Belgium — can still be carried on by Garcia’s deputy Borbely. FIFA President Sepp Blatter (right) hands over the World Cup trophy to Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani . Meanwhile Domenico Scala, chairman of the compliance committee, has the role of deciding today what portions of Garcia’s work the ExCo should see. Prince Ali of Jordan, an advocate of reform who was the first inside the FIFA ExCo to call for the report to be published, said last night: ‘It’s a shame that we have lost Michael Garcia, for whom we had tremendous respect. It was a shock to hear and he must have done it for a reason. It is emblematic of some of the challenges FIFA have.’ FIFA’s British vice-president Jim Boyce said: ‘I am totally shocked. The ethics committee was our most important group.’ For the first two years after my July 2012 appointment as independent chairman of the FIFA Ethics Committee's Investigatory Chamber, I felt that the Ethics Committee was making real progress in advancing ethics enforcement at FIFA. In recent months, that changed. On September 5, 2014, I and Cornel Borbely, the deputy chair of the Investigatory Chamber, sent a 'Report on the Inquiry into the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup Bidding Process' (the 'Report') to the FIFA Ethics Committee's Adjudicatory Chamber. The Report identified serious and wide-ranging issues with the bidding and selection process. (Mr Borbely also filed separate reports from his inquiries into the activities of the bid teams from Russia and the United States.) Soon after, the chairman of the Adjudicatory Chamber, Hans-Joachim Eckert, indicated publicly that only limited information from the Report would be made public. Concerned that insufficient transparency would not serve FIFA's interests, I issued a public statement calling on the FIFA Executive Committee to authorise the appropriate publication of the Report. The Executive Committee took no action on this subject during its September 2014 meetings - other than to refer me to the FIFA Disciplinary Committee for allegedly violating the Code of Ethics through my public comments, namely, my public request that the Executive Committee authorise appropriate publication of the Report and the on-the-record statement Mr Borbely and I released concerning watches given to certain football officials. The chairman of the Disciplinary Committee, Claudio Sulser, ultimately rejected the Executive Committee's referral. On November 13, 2014, Mr Eckert issued a 42-page 'Statement of the Chairman of the Adjudicatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee on the Report on the Inquiry into the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup Bidding Process prepared by the Investigatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee' (the 'Eckert Decision'). In a cover letter, Mr Eckert described the statement as his 'findings, including certain descriptions of the contents of the Investigatory Chamber's report.' The issues raised by Mr Eckert's selection and omission of material from the Report, and his additional comments, went far beyond the initial transparency concerns. As my public statement at the time explained, the Eckert Decision contained 'numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of facts and conclusions.' Accordingly, I appealed. A brief I filed with the FIFA Appeal Committee on November 24, 2014, outlined the Eckert Decision's most serious failings. Among other points, the brief explained why, 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. Yesterday's decision by the Appeal Committee declined to address these points. Instead, the Appeal Committee rejected my appeal on procedural grounds, concluding that 'it is not necessary for the FIFA Appeals Committee to enter into considerations on the substance of the appeal.' The Appeal Committee found that the Eckert Decision was 'merely a personal opinion on the Report' and had 'no legally binding effect whatsoever.' It reached this conclusion even though, under Article 36 of the Code of Ethics, only 'final decisions' may be made public, as the Eckert Decision, which was published on FIFA's website, obviously was. The Appeal Committee also overlooked the Eckert Decision's self-described 'findings,' including one stating that 'the evaluation of the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cups bidding process is closed for the FIFA Ethics Committee.' FIFA President Blatter recently reaffirmed that 'finding' during an interview published by FIFA, stating: 'Furthermore, there is no change to Judge Eckert's statement that the investigation into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups is concluded.' I disagree with the Appeal Committee's decision. It now appears that, at least for the foreseeable future, the Eckert Decision will stand as the final word on the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup bidding process. While the Appeal Committee's decision notes that further appeal may be taken to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, I have concluded that such a course of action would not be practicable in this case. No independent governance committee, investigator, or arbitration panel can change the culture of an organisation. 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. Accordingly, effective today, December 17, 2014, I am resigning as independent chairman of the Investigatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee.
World Cup corruption investigator quit in protest ‘new failure for FIFA’. Michael Garcia has resigned from FIFA's ethics committee and cited a 'lack of leadership' Garcia alleged that FIFA had Garcia's report was only published as a summary appoint US lawyer Garcia and German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert to their Ethics Committee. the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. September 2014 . his summary, which clears Russia and Qatar of of the FIFA Ethics Committee.