FIFA's culture of secrecy criticized by former US Atty who investigated World Cup bidding process
Michael Garcia
A former U.S. Attorney investigating alleged corruption in the World Cup bidding process criticized a culture of secrecy by soccer’s governing body this week in a keynote speech at an ABA event in London.
Michael Garcia submitted his findings last month, but his report has not been made public by soccer’s governing body, FIFA. At the ABA meeting, Garcia called for more transparency, report the Telegraph, Reuters and the BBC.
A system of mostly “unseen and unheard” investigations “might be appropriate for an intelligence agency,” Garcia said at the meeting, “but not for an ethics-compliance process in an international sports institution that serves the public and in turn is subject of intense public scrutiny.”
Garcia, who is the Independent Chair of the Investigatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee, investigated the bidding process in which the 2018 World Cup was awarded to Russia and the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. He would like his report to be published with redactions to protect whistleblowers, according to the Telegraph report and an audio recording of the speech reviewed by the ABA Journal. He is a partner at Kirkland & Ellis.
“It’s one thing to tell people that a rigorous process is in place,” Garcia said. “It’s another thing to show them how that process works and what it has uncovered.”
Garcia also called for “tone at the top,” or strong leadership from FIFA. It’s a concept that Garcia said he more readily dismissed as a prosecutor as cliche, but has come to appreciate in the private sector. “An ethics committee, even a serious, independent ethics committee backed by a strong code of ethics, is not a silver bullet. What is required is leadership, leadership that sends a message that the rules apply to everyone.”
Leadership, Garcia said, is what “breathes life into a code of ethics.”
“True reform doesn’t come from adding rules or creating new committee structures,” he said. “It comes from changing the culture of the organization. That is the vision needed to light the path needed for ethics in sports.”
Garcia spoke at a meeting of the ABA Criminal Justice Section’s International White Collar Crime Institute. Click on the player below to listen to his speech, or listen to it here.
Also see:
Washington Post: “FIFA is so bad, ethics investigator Michael Garcia holds up NFL as good example of transparency”
ABA Journal: “The lawyer who took down Lance Armstrong is on a mission to end the culture of cheating”
Updated at 2:10 p.m. to add audio of Garcia’s speech.
