Friday 21 November 2014 19:49, UK
Sky Sports News HQ’s chief news reporter Bryan Swanson explains the implications of former FA chairman Lord Triesman’s comments about FIFA, and Michael Garcia’s report into the World Cup bidding process…
Lord Triesman strode across Victoria Tower Gardens in Westminster and revealed that he could now, legally, cooperate with FIFA’s chief investigator.
“I have no difficulty in talking to Michael Garcia.” he told Sky Sports News HQ, in his first television interview since FIFA announced that Domenico Scala will examine full copies of reports into alleged World Cup bidding corruption.
Are talks likely to take place?
“No – I think he has decided to close the book.” Triesman said bluntly.
To seasoned FIFA observers this is all too little, too late; three years after some of FIFA’s most senior officials were accused of wrongdoing by Triesman.
Garcia has finished his investigation and Judge Hans-Joachim Eckert has published his summary.
The World Cup will be held in Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022 and Eckert noted, in his 42-page statement published last week, that Garcia had ‘received no cooperation from Lord Triesman’ during his investigation into the bidding process.
“I wanted to speak to him all the way through,” explained England 2018’s initial bid chairman. “I was subject to a court process with someone from the FIFA Executive taking action against me. I was told what I could and couldn’t say and short of deciding to commit contempt of court, you do what you are told. The lawyers handling it told him (Garcia), and he was very courteous in saying he understood.”
Eckert also noted that Triesman ‘waited until well after the conclusion of the FIFA World Cup bid procedure to raise his allegations. According to indications in the Report, this approach has been chosen in order not to jeopardize the England 2018 bid.’
Triesman’s allegations were made five months after the 2018 and 2022 World Cup vote in Zurich.
He maintains that he was only prepared to make the extraordinary claims to a House of Commons Committee, in May 2011, before he informed FIFA.
“I wouldn’t have wished to harm the England bid.” he said. “But I gave an undertaking in Parliament that the first people I would report back to would be Parliament, and that, I think, is the first duty of anybody in Parliament. I didn’t decide the timing of the committee’s hearing. It would have been nice if the opportunity had occurred earlier. But I don’t think members of our Parliament should do things in the media before they go to Parliament.”
Triesman’s accusation that FIFA’s ‘mafia family’ acts like a ‘rogue state’ will further infuriate officials within the corridors of power at the game’s governing body.
But the former FA chairman is adamant that FIFA will only react to direct threats from England, and UEFA, to boycott the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
“The most powerful continental football group is in a position to influence it, as are the major sponsors,” he said. “No-one wants to deprive players the right (to compete in a World Cup). What we do need is a clean sport which is run in a proper and transparent way. I think that everybody will understand the process of putting the pressure on to get the right outcome.”
As the game debates the merits of any boycott, Triesman will take legal advice before any approach to Garcia.
“I will try and work out with the lawyers what the appropriate time is.” said Triesman. “I assume after the written judgments are all published.”
Sky Sports News HQ understands that Scala will present the findings of his report before FIFA’s Executive Committee meeting on 18 December.
An extraordinary year in the history of FIFA could yet have a further twist.
