Selecting hosts for the Fifa World Cup is an important and competitive process as the tournament can have a significant impact on nations and the pride that comes with international success is difficult to match. But intense and sometimes unfair competition for hosting rights has continued to provide opportunities for corruption in the bidding process and the operations of the once revered organisation.
A new report by Fifa’s ethics committee investigating allegations of corruption in the bidding process leading to the decision to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively has brought sharply into focus the problem of bribery and corruption within Fifa, and shows that its statutes and mechanisms are simply not up to the challenge of effectively dealing with the problem and operating a clean organisation.
The 430-page report is not yet published but a 42-page summary identified bribery and other forms of wrongdoings in a murky World Cup bidding process. However, the ethics committee curiously concluded that there is not sufficient evidence to justify stripping either Russia or Qatar of the tournaments.
According to the committee, any breaches of the rules were only of “very limited scope,” meaning that the breaches as a whole “were far from reaching any threshold that would require returning to the bidding process, let alone reopening it.”
