After a bit of mutual back-scratching and a couple of 'dodgy' handshakes, FIFA has found itself squeaky clean and not guilty of any wrongdoing in awarding the 2022 world cup to one of the most inhospitable places on the planet, you'll all be relieved to hear please log in to view this image
The only thing that surprises me is that some people are surprised. After a lifetime of bungs and back handers involving extremely wealthy and powerful people buying off a couple of ' independent nobodies ' to produce a pack of lies in a report presented no problem to Blatter.
I'll tell you what surprises me - that they think we're so thick. Or that they're so thick. I mean, come on, if you're going to commission a report which is basically a pack of lies, at least have the common decency to bribe the guy who carried out the investigation to keep quiet about the fact you've completely ignored what he found. At least try to keep up the pretence or act ashamed if you're caught out. I mean, obviously corruption is utterly reprehensible, but flagrant, shameless and unapologetic corruption is insulting.
And yet they have the brass neck to criticise the England Bid and accusing us as being corrupt! You have to bloody laugh or else you would cry! Teflon Blatter!
The most sensible thing would be to make Brian Gunn England manager and try to not qualify for the Qatar debacle. Or move Christmas to June .
It seems most odd to me that you commission someone to write a several hundred page report over two years, but then get someone else to paraphrase it. Surely the best man for the job is the one who has worked on it for 2 years? The only reason I can think for doing it is so FIFA could suppress aspects of the report that they found damaging. I'm pleased Garcia has promptly come out against FIFA's report, as it keeps the heat on FIFA.
You know what, this gets better... Garcia has said he will appeal against Eckert's findings at the FIFA ethics committee, which is chaired by, erm...Eckert. You couldn't make it up. Also, this made it into the final report: please log in to view this image Now if I've not mistaken, that basically says that a bribe was paid to reduce the opposition to the Qatar bid. But because it didn't effect the overall result we shouldn't worry about it? In that case why are we worrying about the English FA bribing Trinidad and Tobago, seeing as England didn't win the vote anyway? Oh, and apparently Emirates have pulled out of FIFA sponsorship citing concerns over corruption allegations, with Adidas and Sony also expressing concerns. But don't worry, Qatar airways will fill the sponsorship gap.
The bit that made my sides split was that England, typically, disclosed everything and were labelled as corrupt. The report just makes an observation that the Russians were unable to cooperate. Apparently they were unable to supply any emails because their computer equipment was hired and had been returned. And then it was destroyed. Doubtless the still-smouldering ashes were unfortunately dropped into the ocean. But the Russians were using Gmail accounts...!
