SAN FRANCISCO, June 27, (THEWILL) – Former British Prime Minister, David Cameron and the Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, have been fingered in a football corruption probe report.
FIFA, on Tuesday, released a probe into alleged collusion and dodgy interactions with now-discredited officials, detailing the extraordinary lengths England’s football chiefs went to while courting FIFA delegates in a bid to host the 2018 World Cup.
The report, written in 2014 by FIFA’s then Chief Ethics Investigator, Michael Garcia, gave details of meetings with members of the Royal Family, offers of token knighthoods, jobs for officials’ children and vote swaps among many damning allegations.
Telegraph newspaper reports that Cameron and William were at a meeting where a controversial vote-swap deal was discussed with of how England bid officials interacted with FIFA officials in the run up to the vote.
It revealed that Cameron pleaded with the South Korean delegation to back England’s bid, only to be told that England would have to agree to reciprocate by pledging support for South Korea’s bid to host the 2022 tournament which was also being decided at the same time.
“The Prime Minister asked Mr Chung to vote for England’s bid, and Mr Chung responded that he would if Mr [Geoff] Thompson [chairman of England’s bid] voted for Korea,” states the report based on evidence provided by the English delegation.
It was revealed that FA chiefs met with a senior FIFA official in 2009 who asked for an audience with the monarch while Nicolas Leoz, President of the South American Football Confederation, suggested the possibility of an honorary knighthood.
Andy Anson, Chief Executive of England 2018, the company behind the English FA bid, told investigators he recalled officials “said to me that it would be nice if at some point Dr Leoz would get to meet the Queen,” the Telegraph newspaper reports.
Recognising the difficulty of arranging an honorary knighthood, the officials, instead, discussed the possibility of “creating a FA Disability Cup” that “could be named after him”.
The Garcia report also identified “conduct by England 2018 that may not have met the standards set out in the FCE (FIFA code of ethics) or the bid rules”.
“In many cases England 2018 accommodated or at least attempted to satisfy, the improper requests made by these Executive Committee members.
“While the bidding process itself, and the attitude of entitlement and expectation demonstrated by certain Executive Committee members in the exchanges discussed in detail above, place the bid team in a difficult position that fact does not excuse all of the conduct.”
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