Garcia report appeal rejected by FIFA

Michael Garcia will not be able to appeal FIFA’s report of his investigation into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Former United States attorney Garcia led the investigation by FIFA’s Ethics Committee into the bidding process for the next two World Cups, to be held in Russia and Qatar respectively.

The decision to award Qatar the 2022 showpiece was met with particular criticism over alleged corruption and staging the tournament in the country’s extreme weather conditions.

Ahead of a 41-page report into Garcia’s findings being published by Hans-Joachim Eckert, chairman of the adjudicatory chamber of FIFA’s independent Ethics Committee, FIFA insisted the results could not be released in full due to legal implications.

The American blasted “erroneous representations of the facts” in Eckert’s summary and subsequently took his case to the FIFA Appeal Committee.

However, they have rejected Garcia’s complaint, insisting he cannot appeal against the report’s publication as no rulings are proposed within it, nor any fresh allegations of corruption found within it.

A statement read: “The said statement about the report on the inquiry into the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup Bidding Process does not constitute a decision [according to art. 30, art. 73 as well as art. 78-80 of the FIFA Code of Ethics(FCE)], and as such is neither legally binding nor appealable.

“Further, the FIFA Appeal Committee reiterated that the FCE is designed to sanction individuals in cases in which the code has been violated.

“The said statement is not addressed to one or several specific individual(s) and as such does not contain any sanctions in accordance with art. 30 of the FCE.”