Three current Fifa executive committee members and the German World Cup winner Franz Beckenbauer are among those facing formal disciplinary action following Michael Garcia’s 18-month inquiry into the controversial World Cup bidding process.
Spain’s Angel Maria Villar Llona, Michel D’Hooghe from Belgium and Worawi Makudi from Thailand are among those who have had formal cases opened against them by Fifa’s ethics committee as a result of Garcia’s investigation, sources have confirmed.
Beckenbauer, who was on the Fifa executive committee at the time of the controversial vote in favour of Russia to host the 2018 World Cup and Qatar for the 2022 tournament, is also understood to be under investigation.
The fact that four of those who made the decision now face formal proceedings, on top of the long list of former members who have either left under a cloud or faced their own corruption claims, will lend added weight to renewed calls for the vote to be rerun.
However, the Uefa president Michel Platini, who has faced questions over his links to Qatar following his decision to vote for the Gulf state, is not believed to be among those facing action from the ethics committee.
Harold Mayne-Nicholls from Chile, who headed the inspection team which compiled reports on the countries bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and is considering whether to stand against Blatter for the presidency, has also had a formal case opened against him.
Remains unclear
Given Fifa’s refusal to publish Garcia’s full 430-page report following the dispute between the US attorney and German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert over the 42-page summary he produced last week, it remains unclear why they are facing action. Beckenbauer backed Australia in the 2022 vote and has already been censured by Fifa for failing to comply with Garcia’s investigation. Villar Llona was among a cabal of Fifa executive committee members who tried to block Garcia’s attempts to question them.
The Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, has previously admitted that a “bundle of votes” were traded between Qatar and the joint Spain-Portugal bid in contravention of the bidding rules. But both bids have denied there was any collusion and Spain’s bid was barely even mentioned in Eckert’s summary.
The Belgian D’Hooge admitted in 2011 that he accepted a “small painting” from an adviser to Russia’s 2018 bid, later describing it as a “poisonous gift” and pointing out that it was worth nothing.
A job
His son also later took a job as a doctor in Qatar but D’Hooge said yesterday that it had nothing to do with the bidding race and was a “purely a medical decision without any involvement of myself”.
Makudi has long been a controversial presence on the executive committee and has faced questions over a land deal linked to the construction of a new Thai FA headquarters.
Thailand was also to be one of the countries to benefit from Qatar’s Aspire network of football academies and there have also been questions over a gas deal between Thailand and Qatar before the 2010 vote.
Makudi insisted he will cooperate fully with Garcia’s investigation because he “did not do anything wrong”. “Anything he would like to know I will tell him,” Makudi said. “I am very clear in my conscience.”
The Thai tried unsuccessfully to sue the former FA chairman Lord Triesman over allegations, made under parliamentary privilege, that he demanded the television rights to a mooted friendly with England in return for his vote.
The friendly was eventually cancelled by the FA following its 2018 bid humiliation in protest at the “broken promises” made by Fifa executive committee members.After Garcia and Eckert met last week in an effort to iron out their differences, they agreed that Garcia’s full report should be passed to Domenico Scala, the chair of Fifa’s audit committee, who would decide how much should be made available to the executive committee.
Guardian Service
