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 Ángel María 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 exco 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 re-run.
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.
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.
His son also later took a job as a doctor in Qatar but D’Hooge said on Thursday that it had nothing to do with the bidding race and was a “purely a medical decision without any involvement of myself”. D’Hooghe also told the Daily Telegraph in a separate email: “I have given all the necessary correct answers and suppose my case is closed.”
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 on Thursday that 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 told worldfootballinsider.com.
“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.
But given three members of that executive committee are now under investigation, it remains to be seen how much of the report can be shared - or whether they will have to excuse themselves while it is discussed.
Earlier this month Eckert cleared Russia and Qatar to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups saying rule breaches by the bidding countries were “of very limited scope”.
Garcia responded by notifying Fifa that he intended to lodge an appeal against the decision due to “numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts”.
Mayne-Nicholls, whose technical report warned of the high risk of playing in Qatar in the summer, said on Thursday he was still deciding whether to stand against Blatter and would make his decision in the New Year.
The Chilean has been critical of the bidding process and the failure to take his report into account. He is being scrutinised over an alleged request for some of his family members to gain unpaid work experience at Qatar’s Aspire academy.
Several Fifa executive committee members, and a string of figures from outside the game, have called on Fifa to publish the Garcia report in full with appropriate redactions to protect whistleblowers.
An FBI probe into former Fifa executives is continuing, while the Serious Fraud Office is considering whether there is a case to be answered in Britain. Fifa has also passed a file to the Swiss Attorney General’s office.
The culture secretary, Sajid Javid, on Wednesday wrote to Blatter on behalf of the British government to urge him to accede to the FA’s demand that the report be published in full.
Conservative MP Damian Collins, who has described the Eckert report as a “whitewash”, told the House of Commons on Thursday that the “chaos” at Fifa surrounding the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding race showed it was not fit to govern the world game.