FA boss wants Garcia report published

FA chairman Greg Dyke has written to every Fifa executive committee member calling for "urgent action" to ensure ethics investigator Michael Garcia’s report into World Cup bidding is published in full.

Dyke’s action follows Garcia’s move to appeal against the decision by Fifa ethics committee judge Hans-Joachim Eckert to clear Russia and Qatar to host the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, having found no serious breaches of bidding rules by either nation.

Eckert’s findings said there was no reason to rerun the bidding — and criticised England for its relationship with disgraced former Fifa executive member Jack Warner.

Eckert has refused to publish the full report and Dyke states that public confidence in Fifa has hit a new low, while there is “compelling evidence” of wrongdoing.

The letter comes after his predecessor as FA chairman, David Bernstein, urged European nations to boycott the 2018 World Cup unless Fifa undergoes more reforms.

Dyke’s letter states: “As you probably know the reputation of Fifa was already low in England and much of Europe before the events of last week. The failure to publish Mr Garcia’s report, and his statement that the summary report which was published contained ‘numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations’, has resulted in a further decline in public confidence of Fifa.

“Complete transparency is required if the actions of all those who bid, including England 2018, are to be judged fairly.

“Urgent action is needed if confidence in Fifa is to be rebuilt in England. The FA is of the view that this action should start with the full publication of Mr Garcia’s report.”

Bernstein has resigned from his role on Fifa’s anti-discrimination task force and issued a call for a European boycott of the World Cup.

Bernstein said: “There are 54 countries within Uefa. There’s Germany, Spain, Italy, France and Holland — all powerful. You can’t hold a serious World Cup without them. They have the power to influence if they have the will. The choosing of Qatar was clearly one of the most ludicrous decisions in the history of sport. You might as well have chosen Iceland in the winter. It was like an Alice in Wonderland sort of decision.”

Meanwhile, the two whistle blowers at the centre of World Cup corruption allegations have made a formal complaint to Fifa that promises of confidentiality have been breached.

Phaedra Almajid, who worked for the Qatar 2022 bid team before losing her job in 2010, said promises that her identity would be protected had been crucial to her co-operation with the ethics investigation.

She and Bonita Mersaides, who worked for Australia’s 2022 bid, have separately registered formal complaints against Eckert claiming his findings contained more than enough information to make the two whistle blowers easily identifiable from previous publicly-reported statements.