FIFA on Tuesday published an American investigator’s top-secret report into the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, acting, it said, “for the sake of transparency.” The decision to publish the report, which had been kept secret for more than two years and detailed bribes and vote-trading in the bidding process, came a day after a German newspaper revealed that it had obtained a copy and planned to publish the report’s details.
Fresh disclosures of possible ethics violations in the bidding processes for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were expected to emerge after the newspaper, Bild, revealed on Monday that it had obtained a copy of a previously unreleased, 430-page report.