FIFA boycott calls, pressure for full report

A Qatar whistleblower has lodged a two-page complaint about her treatment in Joachim Eckert's 42-page summary into allegations of corruption. A former employee of the Qatar 2022 bid, Phaedra Almajid, was one of 70 to co-operate and give evidence to FIFA investigators.

But she confirmed that she had filed the report to the Manhattan base of Judge Michael Garcia, who was tasked with producing the original report on the decision to award the World Cup hosting-rights to Russia and Qatar.

Garcia decided not to publish the 430-page report in public, but Eckert's summary cleared the Russian and Qatari authorities of any wrong-doing. Within the report, however, the German "misrepresented" Garcia's work, while Almajid felt her portrayal was "crude, cynical and fundamentally erroneous."

In the letter of complaint, seen by the Associated Press news agency, she highlighted that Eckert "falsely discredits me in order to support his indefensible conclusion that the December 2010 bidding was wholly acceptable."

"I have taken great personal risks to stand up for the truth in a highly politicized atmosphere," she wrote to Garcia, the head of FIFA's ethics committee. "However I have found myself betrayed and denigrated for being courageous enough to come forward with critical information."

Meanwhile, Bonita Mersiades, a former employee of Australia's 2022 bid, added to the criticisms of Almajid who claims Eckert breached her right to confidentiality, which had been guaranteed before giving evidence.

Writing in The Guardian newspaper, Mersaides said: "It says much about FIFA and those inside their tent that they felt it necessary to engage in a denigration of the two women who had been courageous enough to say something."

Voting with their feet

FIFA, the world's governing football body, has come under heavy-fire this week from the former head of the English Football Association who has called on the current hierarchy of English football to throw their weight behind Germany's push for reforms.

President of the German Football League, Reinhart Rauball, suggested that UEFA, Europe's governing association, could be forced to split from FIFA, if the full details of Garcia's report aren't made public.

"At some stage you have to walk the talk, stop talking and do something," David Bernstein, ex-FA chairman, told the BBC. It has also been reported that the federations of the Netherlands and Belgium have supported the idea of a potential World Cup boycott.

FIFA officials are set to meet on Thursday to discuss the findings of Eckert's summary, while a second meeting two weeks from now will take place in Frankfurt with representatives from the German Football Federation.

A spokesman for the DFB, however, denied that the scheduled meeting is a "crisis summit" and said instead that it is a "regular" meeting, as reported in the German football magazine 'Kicker'.

rd/ksb (AFP, AP, Reuters)