ZURICH: FIFA ethics investigator Michael Garcia’s appeal against the statement issued by ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert on his investigation into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process has been ruled inadmissible.

FIFA also said on Tuesday there were no grounds for opening disciplinary proceedings against Eckert following complaints from whistleblowers who gave evidence to the investigation that their evidence had been revealed.

World football’s governing body was plunged into chaos last month when Eckert said there were no grounds to reopen the controversial bidding process which led to Russia being given the 2018 finals and Qatar the 2022 tournament.

Former US Attorney Garcia, who led the investigation over an 18-month period, immediately appealed against Eckert’s statement, claiming “numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations” of his work.

The German judge also reaffirmed FIFA’s insistence that the full Garcia report could not be released to protect the identities of some people named by the inquiry.

Eckert’s report “does not constitute a decision ... and as such is neither legally binding nor appealable,” FIFA said in a statement.

FIFA also provided further legal opinion in a background paper on its website.

“In doing so, the chairman [Eckert] had merely commented on the report of [Garcia’s] investigatory chamber on a voluntary basis,” the FIFA paper said.

“Further, the FIFA Appeal Committee reiterated that the FIFA code of ethics [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.”

Widespread allegations of corruption have been made, notably against Qatar. But the Gulf state has strongly denied any wrongdoing.

It is unclear if Garcia can now take his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The ruling was published less than one hour after FIFA announced a disciplinary committee judgment dismissing complaints by two whistleblowers who were interviewed during the probe.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2014