Sunday 16 November 2014 16:12, UK
One of the whistleblowers who gave evidence to FIFA's corruption probe has told Sky Sports News she's been threatened after making accusations about the bidding process for the 2022 World Cup.
Bonita Mersiades worked on Australia's bid for the tournament - but her evidence to Michael Garcia's inquiry has been dismissed as unreliable by FIFA Judge Hans-Joachim Eckert.
Eckert, the FIFA Ethics committee chief, ruled there was no reason to re-run the bidding process in his summary of Garcia’s investigation into the bidding process.
The whole concept of having an investigation by FIFA about FIFA by people paid by FIFA - that's not what an independent investigation is.
However, Garcia has accused Eckert of misrepresenting his report and announced he would appeal the decision to clear Qatar and Russia to host the 2022 and 2018 World Cup tournaments.
Mersiades has called the investigation a "farce" and isn't surprised it cleared world football's governing body of wrongdoing.
"I have been threatened in terms of not publishing information about the bid," she said. "I have written a book about the bid and I have certainly been threatened about that.
"There are people in FIFA who would prefer that the book doesn't see the light of day.
"I was threatened that if I did publish it then there would be legal trouble for me. I think it's interesting that they went to the point of singling out two whistleblowers, both of whom happened to be women.
"You can only imagine why they might want to see hone the blame for the state of FIFA to two whistleblowers. It's very FIFA-esque. They don't even get that it's an issue. It's high-farce.
"The whole concept of having an investigation by FIFA about FIFA by people paid by FIFA - that's not what an independent investigation is, so it doesn't surprise me at all that that's what they've come up with. I think that's what everybody's expectation was."
