By Andrew Warshaw
September 17 – The German judge who will deliver the eagerly awaited verdicts into whether any corruption took place during the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bid process has given a broad hint that he will not hold back from recommending sanctions.
Hans-Joachim Eckert, who heads the adjudicatory chamber of FIFA’s ethics committee, is currently wading through the 360-page report into the case submitted by independent ethics investigator Michael Garcia.
As part of FIFA’s reform process, over a two-year period Garcia interviewed as many officials as possible involved in the bidding process, including representatives of all nine candidate countries as well as FIFA executive committee members, and handed his findings to Eckert two weeks ago.
Eckert is due to address a landmark ethics in sport conference being hosted by FIFA at its Zurich headquarters on Friday and being opened by FIFA president Sepp Blatter. While he is not expected to refer to Garcia’s report per se, Eckert says he will give a frank assessment of football’s position that could make uncomfortable listening for some of those present.
“Many won’t like what I am going to tell them,” Eckert told Reuters. “It is questionable whether soccer and ethics still fit together.”
Eckert said it will take him quite a while longer before he announces his verdicts into any wrongdoing surrounding the joint December 2010, ballot won by Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022).
“I am expecting a decision in a few months. I see the beginning of November when I am going to get ready,” he said, adding he has also received some 200,000 other pages of documents relating to the case.
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