QATAR paid the 10-year-old daughter of a FIFA official £1.6million, according to a leaked document from an investigation into the 2022 World Cup.
Bild are publishing parts of the 430-page investigation by Michael Garcia, who quit as FIFA‘s independent ethics investigator in 2014 after accusing them of publishing a doctored version.
FIFA refused to publish the complete and original version of the exposé on Russia and Qatar’s successful bids for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, but the German paper is revealing all.
They claim three FIFA executives were flown to a party in Rio in a private jet owned by the Qatari FA before the vote to decide who would host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
Garcia’s thorough 430-page document was hacked down to a 42-page summary by German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, which cleared the Russia and Qatar of buying their World Cups.
The edited version was slaughtered and Garcia was widely criticised but he hit back by revealing he was furious with how his hard work was handled by the German.
Garcia said: “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.”
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He added: “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”.
Blatter – in response to Garcia’s exit and damning comments in 2014 – played down his comments and vowed to continue fighting the corruption he was later accused of leading.
He said: “I am surprised by Mr Garcia’s decision.
“The work of the ethics committee will nonetheless continue and will be a central part of discussions at the exco meeting in the next two days.”
On 8 October 2015 Blatter was suspended from FIFA for 90 days while investigations into dodgy payments made.
And, on 21 December, FIFA's ethics committee banned both Blatter from football for eight years, later reduced to six.
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