FIFA, the money-printing outfit in Zurich that serves as soccer’s world governing body, said on Thursday that it “welcomes the fact that a degree of closure has been reached.”
Yes, at last, FIFA has closure, well-earned closure. You see, after widespread reports emerged suggesting that something funny was behind the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids — awarded to Russia and Qatar — FIFA launched an investigation. That investigation has ultimately resulted in a 42-page report by the organization’s head ethics judge that basically said, shockingly: “Keep moving, folks. Nothing to see here.”
Somewhere in a dark corner of his lair in Switzerland, Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, had such a rollicking belly laugh that some change fell out of his deep pockets.
Maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe the bids were clean, and maybe an investigation paid for by the people being investigated is the most reliable means of uncovering corruption in one’s own backyard.
Maybe FIFA should be our example for all that’s right and good. Even after years of ethics scandals, maybe we’ve been wrong about it the whole time.
FIFA Official on World Cup Bids Inquiry
Jerome Valcke, FIFA’s secretary general, reacted to news that Michael J. Garcia, chairman of the investigatory chamber of FIFA’s ethics committee, plans to appeal a decision on World Cup bidding.
Video by Reuters on Publish Date November 13, 2014. Photo by Sajjad Hussain/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.The report released on Thursday by Hans-Joachim Eckert, the judge, reminded me of the investigation of Lance Armstrong’s possible positive drug samples from the 1999 Tour de France. That report was paid for by the International Cycling Union, and deemed independent, but it ended up focusing not on whether Armstrong had failed those drug tests, but rather on who leaked Armstrong’s positives. That report, like this one, should have uncovered so much more — like, for instance, the truth.
Eckert’s brief summary of a 500-page investigative report said the inquiry found no significant evidence of corruption in connection with the bids — despite “potentially problematic conduct” by several of the bidding nations.
The main investigator, Michael J. Garcia, a former United States attorney, quickly attacked Eckert’s summary of his findings, saying in a statement on Thursday that the report was filled with holes and contains “erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions.”
Garcia is peddling his investigative skills for an organization that does not exactly inhabit the moral high ground. At least six of the 22 members of the executive board who voted for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids have been censured for ethics violations.
Let’s consider what the summary report did disclose, notably this exquisite passage about Russia:
“The Russia 2018 Bid Committee made only a limited amount of documents available for review, which was explained by the fact that the computers used at the time by the Russian Bid Committee had been leased and then returned to their owner after the Bidding Process. The owner has confirmed that the computers were destroyed in the meantime.”
Oops. How convenient.
Strangely, some of the most scathing words were saved for the losers. England, whose bid for the 2018 tournament failed, was hammered the hardest, which sort of makes sense, considering British journalists have been leading the charge against the integrity of the bid process.
Garcia might be the most aggrieved party. He now finds himself entangled in a labyrinth of politics and obfuscation for which FIFA is infamous. Garcia’s full report is said to focus on the violations of FIFA executive committee members, according to a person briefed on the contents. But will those members face ethics charges?
Garcia said he would appeal Eckert’s decision. To whom does he appeal? FIFA itself.
Let me guess here: FIFA will declare, as it has many times in the past, that FIFA has done nothing wrong.