• German
League president attacks ‘complete loss of credibility’
• Report
summary clears Russia and Qatar of wrongdoing
•
Investigator says his findings were misrepresented
 |
| Uefa has called on the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, to stand down and is looking for a candidate to take on the Swiss. Photograph: Ito Takashi/AMA/Corbis |
The
president of the German Football League has warned that Uefa’s 54 member
nations could take the ultimate step of quitting Fifa if Michael Garcia’s
report into World Cup bidding is not published in full.
Dr Reinhard
Rauball laid bare the tensions within Fifa over the split between the ethics
committee judge, Hans-Joachim Eckert, and Garcia, the US attorney who heads the
investigatory arm and spent 18 months probing the race for the 2018 and 2022
World Cups. Garcia has disowned Eckert’s summary of his 430-page report, which
effectively cleared Russia and Qatar.
“The result
was a breakdown in communication, and it has shaken the foundations of Fifa in
a way I’ve never experienced before,” said Rauball.
“As a
solution, two things must happen. Not only must the decision of the ethics
committee be published, but Mr Garcia’s bill of indictment too, so it becomes
clear what the charges were and how they were judged,” he told the German
website kicker.de.
“Additionally,
the areas that were not evaluated [in the report] and whether that was justified
[should be published]. It must be made public. That is the only way Fifa can
deal with the complete loss of credibility.”
He said
that if the report was not published in full – and Eckert has already said that
he will not do that, while Fifa argues it cannot intervene – then Uefa should
consider its own position within Fifa. “If this doesn’t happen and the crisis
is not resolved in a credible manner, you have to entertain the question of
whether you are still in good hands with Fifa,” Rauball added. “One option that
would have to bear serious consideration is certainly that Uefa leaves Fifa.”
Rauball’s
intervention comes against the backdrop of Uefa’s calls for the Fifa president,
Sepp Blatter, to stand down, as he promised to do at the end of his current
four-year term. Although the Uefa president, Michel Platini, has opted against
standing against Blatter in next year’s election, Uefa is continuing to cast
around for an alternative candidate to take on the 78-year-old Swiss.
Before the
Brazil World Cup, a series of speakers at Uefa’s congress stood up to call for
Blatter to make his current term his last, while the FA chairman, Greg Dyke,
denounced Blatter for claiming corruption allegations in the media were
motivated by racism.
Fifa
confirmed on Friday night that it had received formal notification of Garcia’s
intention to take Eckert’s summary of his investigation to its appeals
committee.
Meanwhile,
one of the two whistleblowers discredited in Eckert’s statement, Bonita
Mersiades, the head of communications for Australia’s 2022 bid, was scathing in
her assessment of Fifa’s handling of the investigation. “It’s an organisation
that, in terms of governance, is just a farce,” she said.
“The only people that come out well in that summary report by Eckert is Fifa. [It says] they got their decisions right in respect to Qatar and Russia, and there’s even a sentence and a reference in there that Sepp Blatter ran a wonderful process. It’s almost like high comedy.”
“The only people that come out well in that summary report by Eckert is Fifa. [It says] they got their decisions right in respect to Qatar and Russia, and there’s even a sentence and a reference in there that Sepp Blatter ran a wonderful process. It’s almost like high comedy.”
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