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 Swiss officials question whether Garcia’s report, which has not been
made public, has significant evidentiary value, said the source, who
spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity. That is because
Garcia, who was hired by FIFA, had no subpoena power, did not take
sworn testimony, and was operating under FIFA's own ethical rules,
which had little enforcement power behind them, the source added.
Switzerland’s Attorney General Michael Lauber told reporters last
week that the FBI, which has been conducting its own wide-ranging
probe into corruption in FIFA and its affiliates, has not asked him
or his office for a copy of the Garcia report, and he hadn’t
provided the U.S. authorities with one. A U.S. law enforcement
official told Reuters earlier this month that the FBI did not have a
copy of Garcia's report.
Garcia, a former top U.S. government prosecutor, was brought in by
FIFA in 2012 to run its ethics committee’s investigations, including
examining allegations of corruption.
The report, submitted to FIFA last September, has been a mysterious
part of the growing scandal because FIFA not only declined to
publish it but instead released a summary by FIFA ethics judge
Hans-Joachim Eckert that prompted Garcia to quit in protest in
December. Eckert concluded that any impairment of integrity in the
bidding process was only of “very limited scope” and it was far from
reaching any threshold that would require reopening the bidding
process for the two World Cups.
Garcia said at the time that the summary contained
misrepresentations and that he had lost confidence in the
independence of Eckert. He also criticized the “lack of leadership”
in FIFA, and said he couldn’t change the organization’s culture.
Garcia was not available for comment and is declining media
interviews about FIFA, a spokeswoman for Garcia’s law firm, Kirkland
& Ellis, said on Tuesday.
Spokespeople for U.S. prosecutors and for the FBI declined to
comment on Tuesday.
Eckert’s summary stresses that Garcia’s probe had major limitations
because of the lack of subpoena powers.
For example, several former members of FIFA’s 24-strong executive
committee, which made the World Cup decisions, either declined or
did not respond to requests for interviews or to provide written
answers to questions. In addition, the Russian bid committee only
made a limited number of documents available because the computers
it had used were leased, then returned to their owner and destroyed
after the award, the summary said.
The Russian part of the investigation was handled by Garcia’s
deputy, Cornel Borbely, because Moscow had banned Garcia from
entering the country in retaliation for U.S. sanctions imposed in
response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
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The executive committee voted in 2010 to give Russia the 2018 World
Cup hosting rights and Qatar the tournament in 2022. That was
despite a warning from a FIFA evaluation team before the vote that
Qatar and Russia carried higher operational risk than the other
seven bidders, such as England and the United States.
The competition to host a World Cup, which is held every four years,
is fierce as it is the most widely viewed sporting event in the
world and carries enormous prestige and the potential for economic
benefits.
The troubles facing FIFA worsened dramatically on May 27 when U.S.
prosecutors unveiled the indictment of nine current and former FIFA
officials and five corporate executives for allegedly running a
criminal enterprise that involved more than $150 million in bribes
over 24 years.
Separately, FIFA lodged a criminal complaint with the Swiss
authorities last November concerning the “possible misconduct of
individual persons” in connection with the awarding of the World Cup
rights. Around that time, FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who earlier
this month announced he would be stepping down, personally contacted
Lauber’s office and said he would be sending it the Garcia report,
the source said. The report was received not long afterwards.
In March, Lauber’s office formally opened its investigation into
possible corruption in the World Cup awards.
Sources familiar with the investigation on both sides of the
Atlantic say they are unsure why the FBI did not seek a copy of the
Garcia report, even if it contained little of consequence to the
U.S. probe.
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball and David Ingram; Editing by Noeleen
Walder and Martin Howell)
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