Newly Released World Cup Corruption Report Not as Clean as FIFA Claimed

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports.

One day after a reporter from the German newspaper BILD claimed to have obtained a full copy of Michael Garcia's report on his investigation of allegations of corruption with regard to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding, FIFA released the full report itself. Garcia, who served as chairman of the investigatory chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee, resigned in protest after FIFA published a 42-page summary of his 430-page, three-part report that largely cleared the Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 bids of any wrongdoing. At the time, Garcia said the summary contained "numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of facts and conclusions." Now we have the full report and can see just what those misrepresentations were.

FIFA released three separate documents, a main report, the lion's share of which concerns the Qatar 2022 bid, and individual documents for the Russia 2018 bid, and the United States 2022 bid. Both the Russia and US bids come off cleanly, but other bids are more suspect. We are going to update this post as we continue to parse through the report, but we will start with Qatar and Australia.

The investigation into Qatar Government Involvement, which begins on page 164 of the main report, reveals what appears to be a link involving the sale of liquified natural gas in exchange for the Thailand Football Association's support of Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed Bin Hammam's 2011 bid to be elected FIFA president, and for the Qatar 2022 World Cup bid. Bin Hammam dropped out of the presidential race in May 2011 amid bribery allegations, and has since been banned from FIFA for life.

The report notes an inordinately close relationship between the Qatari government and the Qatar 2022 bid, with the government sending out a notice requiring "'[a]ll ministries, governmental institutions, organizations and public foundations' to 'cooperate' with Qatar's bid committee, including by assisting the committee in 'overcoming' any 'obstacle[s].'" While the investigation did not find credible allegations of direct governmental influence, there were instances of state-controlled businesses being involved in the bid process.

The report spends considerable time exploring the conduct of Joe Sim, a supposed "Chief Advisor" to Thai FA president and FIFA Executive Committee member Worawi Makudi. While Sim's official title is not necessarily clear, the report says he was close with Makudi and often accompanied him to official Thai FA meetings where he was introduced as an advisor. The investigation strongly suggests that Sim was involved in negotiations with Qatargas, a state-controlled company, to work out a deal for a reduced price for liquified natural gas (LNG), in exchange for the Thai FA supporting Qatar's bid.

Sim also bcc'd an assistant for Bin Hammam on the email referenced above.

Sim later told Garcia's investigators that the email was meant to discuss potential sponsorship of the Thai National Football Team by Qatargas, and had nothing to do with LNG sales. But later reports indicated that Thailand's state-run energy company, PTT Public Company Limited, was looking to re-negotiate a contract with Qatargas.

As footnote 1081 notes, just three months before Sim sent his email, PTT was attempting to renegotiate a fixed deal because of a decline in liquified natural gas prices. PTT wanted to use the current rate, rather than the previously agreed upon price. Seven months after the World Cup was awarded to Qatar, Qatar delivered LNG to PPT at the current price.

Because of this, and several inconsistencies between the principle parties involved, the investigation concluded "[o]n its face, Mr. Sim's August 2010 email to the Chairman of Qatar Petroleum, blind-copied to Mr. Bin Hammam's assistant, gives the appearance that a LNG contract was being negotiated through football channels," and suggested that further investigation into Makudi was needed, given his role as Thai FA president and FIFA executive committee voting member.

Australia was the only 2022 bid that didn't have representation on the executive committee, putting it at a natural disadvantage. So, they tried to buy one, Garcia's report alleges. A section of the report says the bid went to great lengths to get Franz Beckenbauer, a member of FIFA's executive committee from 2007 to 2011, on their side by hiring Fedor Radmann, Beckenbauer's right-hand man, as a consultant. Radmann's relationship to Beckenbauer is alternately described by FIFA insiders in the report as a friend, business partner, aide, spokesman, and frequent travel companion. The report makes clear that Radmann was hired because of his relationship with Beckenbauer.

Prior to this, Radmann was pitching his "services" around as a bid consultant, chairs of the US and England bids told Garcia's investigators. The chairs of the US and English bids declined to hire him for appearance reasons. So, at least some people within FIFA understood that hiring an executive committee's best friend as a consultant didn't look good.

The Australia bid understood the optics as well, but only insofar as they attempted to cover it up, according to the report. Australia 2022 eventually hired Radmann as a subcontractor through another firm, steps the Garcia Report interprets as attempts to mask his ties to the bid (although the Australian bid told Garcia's investigators it was at Radmann's request for "taxation reasons"). Tax evasion notwithstanding, the Australian bid used code names in internal emails and referred to the duo by their initials, "F&F", and other single-letter codes, dictated via a password-protected list of aliases. "I have no intention to be reading my emails in some paper," bid strategist, and Sepp Blatter confidant, Peter Hargitay wrote to a colleague.

Throughout the negotiations, Hargitay always blind-copied Radmann in pertinent emails (but, oddly, mentioned in a few such emails he was bcc'ing him). In October 2009, another member of the Australian bid accidentally cc'd Radmann so every recipient could see he was on the email. According to the report, "Mr. Hargitay responded sternly: 'Please do not list Fedor in the recipient lines!!!!! You simply MUST NOT do that. Why? Because you are thus jeopardizing everything.'"

Although the report doesn't hold back on condemning Radmann's sketchy association with the bid, it is less conclusive about the actual impact hiring Radmann had on Beckenbauer's vote. Beckenbauer was willing to publicly trash the England and US bids—which, of course, declined to hire his friend—but the report provides little evidence Beckenbauer lobbied on behalf of the Australian bid. Beckenbauer denied pledging to vote for Australia, which received only one vote. He also declined to tell the Garcia Report who he voted for.

For his part, Hargitay trashed the Qatar bid in personal emails to Blatter and forwarded confidential executive committee correspondence to the Australians to prove he had insider access, but there's precious little evidence any of this translated into votes, given that Australia only received one.