GENEVA (AP) – Investigations of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup votes should be given more time to finish, according to FIFA presidential contender Jerome Champagne.
Ahead of the FIFA executive committee reviewing the case next week, Champagne suggested today that the hosting status of Russia and Qatar were still open to question.
“I only hope that the truth will come,” Champagne told The Associated Press in an interview, regarding the FIFA board’s choices in December 2010.
“We have time and that is why we need to do things correctly after four years of controversies.”
“We need to protect the World Cup and we need to know if the 14-8 vote’s integrity has been respected or not,” he said, referring to Qatar’s margin of victory over the United States in a final round of voting in the 2022 contest.
Champagne said “a few more months” were needed to finish the investigations and finally deal with the case, which has long been linked to claims of vote-buying, collusion and favour-seeking.
Champagne said that FIFA’s own ethics probe of the hosting votes, an investigation which he believes is underway by the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), and FIFA’s criminal complaint to the Swiss attorney general – relating to conduct of unnamed individuals – are all unresolved.
Also, ethics prosecutor Michael Garcia has opened cases against five past and current FIFA officials including Germany great Franz Beckenbauer, a former board member who voted in 2010.
“We need to know what has happened. And to continue the process until the end,” said Champagne, who was FIFA international relations director until leaving in January 2010.
