Football Association rejects 2018 World Cup bid criticism after FIFA report released
Thursday 13 November 2014 16:06, UK
The Football Association is refusing to “accept any criticism” regarding their bid for the 2018 World Cup after they were accused of flouting rules by world football's governing body.
FIFA published their report in the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments on Tuesday, which cleared respective hosts Russia and Qatar of wrongdoing.
However, the report accuses the FA of flouting FIFA’s bidding rules and questioned the conduct of their officials, who helped secure a job in the UK for a family friend of disgraced former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner.
FA chairman Greg Dyke defended the action of his organisation and told Sky Sports News HQ: "This is all based on the information we gave to FIFA and the FA had cleared it all with the FIFA executive committee in advance."
An FA spokesman added: "We note the FIFA ethics committee has today published a 42-page report in relation to the bidding processes for the FIFA World Cups in 2018 and 2022.
"I don’t think anyone will accuse the FA of being anything other than behaving properly"
"We were not given any prior notice of the report before publication. We do not accept any criticism regarding the integrity of England's bid or any of the individuals involved.
"We conducted a transparent bid and, as the report demonstrates with its reference to the England bid team's 'full and valuable co-operation', willingly complied with the investigation. We maintain that transparency and co-operation around this entire process from all involved is crucial to its credibility.
"We also note that after a lengthy investigatory process and assessment, the report has concluded that the 'potentially problematic facts and circumstances identified by the report regarding the England 2018 bid were, all in all, not suited to compromise the integrity of the FIFA World Cup 2018/22 bidding process as a whole'."
The report by German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, chairman of the adjudicatory chamber of FIFA's independent ethics committee, cleared both 2018 bid winners Russia and Qatar to host the tournaments.
Speaking to Sky Sports News HQ, Dyke added: "I didn’t find it a very illuminating report and the essential question is still there – that all the bits were assessed and the one with highest risk was Qatar and they won. It doesn’t take it any further forward why they won. I still don’t understand why it was given to Qatar."
Asked whether the process had tarnished the reputation of the international governing body, Dyke said: "I think it’s hard to damage the image of FIFA! The ones who cooperated the most have got criticised and those that didn’t cooperate at all didn’t get anything which seems odd by anybody’s standards. Now there’s a surprise!"
And whether there were questions about the conduct of the FA and their reputation had been damaged, he stated: "No. I don’t think anyone will accuse the FA of being anything other than behaving properly."
Conservative MP Damian Collins, who has campaigned for FIFA reform and in 2011 used Parliamentary privilege to make allegations that bribes helped secure Qatar the tournament, said the report was "a whitewash".
Collins said: "It is an attempt to con people that there has been a full and independent investigation when there has not been. The result is that allegations of bribery and serious wrongdoing remain unanswered and they are still suppressing the full report."
The report does confirm that disgraced former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner solicited benefits on numerous occasions in violation of bidding rules - and that England often accommodated them. Money that Australia sent for development projects in the Caribbean ended up in his personal bank account.
Collins added: "FIFA are trying to con people that there has been a proper independent inquiry when there hasn't been. This is FIFA investigating itself and not surprisingly returning a verdict of not guilty.
"The points being made about the England bid are just a smokescreen to try to hide these facts."
