Former U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia was sent packing with his complaint against his Co-Chairman of the FIFA Ethics Commission. FIFA’s Appeal Committee, chaired by Larry Mussenden, has concluded that the appeal lodged by Garcia, chairman of the investigatory chamber, against the statement of Hans-Joachim Eckert, chairman of the adjudicatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee, is not admissible. The Appeal Committee ruled that Eckert’s statement about the report on the inquiry into the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup Bidding Process does not constitute a decision [according to art. 30, art. 73 as well as art. 78-80 of the FIFA Code of Ethics (FCE)], and as such is neither legally binding nor appealable.
The FIFA Appeal Committee also states that “the FCE is designed to sanction individuals in cases
in which the code has been violated. The said statement is not addressed to one or several specific
individual(s) and as such does not contain any sanctions in accordance with art. 30 of the FCE”. The Committee also noted that the inquiry into the 2018/2022 World Cup™ Bidding Process by the investigatory chamber does not constitute a final report (in accordance with art. 68 of the FCE).
The statement continues: “The report neither cites any rule violations of an accused person, nor
does it contain any kind of recommendation to the adjudicatory chamber for sanctioning an accused
person. As long as the adjudicatory chamber does not receive a final report from the investigatory chamber pursuant to art. 68 of the FCE directed against an accused person, mentioning the possible rule violation and containing a recommendation for taking appropriate sanctions, there is no room and competence for the adjudicatory chamber to exercise the adjudicatory powers that the FCE provides it with”.
This article was republished with permission from the editor and author, Karl-Heinz Huba. The original article appears in the Issue 20141216 of the Sport Intern.