Skip to content

FIFA member Theo Zwanziger calls for vote on publication of Michael Garcia report

Image: Michael Garcia: Compiled report for FIFA

FIFA members will be asked to vote next week on whether Michael Garcia's World Cup bidding report should be published.

Theo Zwanziger will table a proposal at the executive committee meeting in Marrakech asking for a relaxation of the ethics code which Sepp Blatter says prevents the report's publication.

To date only ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert's summary of the report into the 2018 and 2022 bidding process has been made public, and that summary was criticised by Garcia himself.

FIFA's agenda for next week's meeting references only "13.1.3. Proposal submitted by Theo Zwanziger".

But German press agency DPA quoted committee member Zwanziger as saying: "I would like to see this ban relaxed so that the FIFA executive committee, as well as the public, in an appropriate form, can be informed of the contents of the investigation."

It has been suggested that reference to "an appropriate form" could mean names being redacted in the event of any publication.

Zwanziger has been critical of FIFA in the past, calling the decision to award Qatar the 2022 finals "one of the biggest mistakes ever in the history of sport".

More from World Cup 2022

He has also suggested the tournament will be moved elsewhere - something FIFA immediately denied - and in October said football's governing body has "a transparency problem."

Around Sky