"Fifa report 'erroneous', says lawyer who investigated corruption claims"

[Goldstone1976]

“As Michael Garcia, the lawyer responsible for the report is a US citizen, a partner within Kirkland Ellis LLP and bound by US and New York State law ... can a freedom of information request to get a copy of the report be made?”

Wouldn't have thought so. It was a report commissioned by a third party (FIFA) of either him or his firm, and would have all sorts of confidentiality clauses built into it. If we could get this report, why not a copy of Scarlett Johansson's last film contract, or a copy of Apple's contract with a semiconductor fab, or ... well, anything really...?

 

[father_and_son]

Don't forget that the FA have to keep filling Wembley with international fixtures in order to pay for the huge debt they amassed by building it. If we drop out of FIFA no international teams will be allowed to play England and the FA have a huge white elephant on their hands.

Offer it to an NFL franchise... they seem to fill it much better than the England squad can. We just need to lease it back a few times a year.

 

[Vegas Seagull]

“As Michael Garcia, the lawyer responsible for the report is a US citizen, a partner within Kirkland Ellis LLP and bound by US and New York State law ... can a freedom of information request to get a copy of the report be made?”

FIFA are bigger than the US and above any lawmakers

 

[TomandJerry]

Wouldn't have thought so. It was a report commissioned by a third party (FIFA) of either him or his firm, and would have all sorts of confidentiality clauses built into it. If we could get this report, why not a copy of Scarlett Johansson's last film contract, or a copy of Apple's contract with a semiconductor fab, or ... well, anything really...?

Though a Freedom of Information request would require them to show it?

 

[TomandJerry]

FIFA are bigger than the US and above any lawmakers

The request would be sent to the lawyer who is an American Citizen, not FIFA as a whole (I believe!)

 

[Goldstone1976]

Though a Freedom of Information request would require them to show it?

A FOI request in the UK doesn't apply to whole categories of information.* I don't know what the rules are under NY Law! I would be really surprised if FOI legislation covered this scenario; but, hey, it's the US, so who knows...!

* Try a FOI request on BHAFC for the contracts of all the players for example...

 

[Seagull over Canaryland]

I'm hoping that Mr. Garcia has at least one copy of his full report in his safe against just such an outcome.

Quite - hopefully Garcia's full report will see the light of day. However I'm looking beyond Garcia's original report. The terms for that were set by FIFA and I wonder if in practice they actually allowed him carte blanche? I suspect not.

However the FBI would not be constrained by such terms of reference, would certainly not be dictated to by FIFA (it might not stop FIFA trying to create political pressure on the FBI though....). The FBI would be duty bound to 'follow the evidence', wherever it leads them - and well beyond FIFA's wishes.

For example the FIFA report already prompts questions about certain national football associations that chose not to co-operate with Garcia's investigation. However I'm not sure that the FBI's jurisdiction extends into the Russia, Qatar etc..........however it would be nice to see the FBI try it on.

Sadly most of this investigation would be at arms length from Blatter himself, although of course it happened on his watch, reflects a culture that he perpetuated, and that he rather reluctantly allowed any scrutiny into.

 

[Cosmic Joker]

The request would be sent to the lawyer who is an American Citizen, not FIFA as a whole (I believe!)

I don't think you understand Freedom of Information. It applies to Government and public sector organisations, not to private individuals or private sector companies. Without being an expert in international law, this is fundamental to all FoI legislation in countries around the world, as far as I am aware. FoI rights are also full of exemptions for sensitive information and work in progress etc, although that does vary from country to country and in the US from state to state.

The only way Garcia's report could become subject to FoI is if it was first supplied by him to a Government or Government agency. They would then have to decide if it fell inside their exemption criteria, and as the purpose of supplying it to a Government agency would presumably be so they could carry out their own investigation into whether FIFA had broken laws in their country, it almost certainly would be exempt until such investigations had concluded and those results published.

 

[The Fifth Column]

The report noted that the Russian bid team made "only a limited amount of documents available for review".
According to the report, the Russian team hired computers that were subsequently destroyed, denying the inquiry access to email accounts.
"We were always confident that there could be nothing which would come out from this investigation," said Alexey Sorokin, the head of Russia's 2018 World Cup organising committee. Sorokin went on to claim, "Its because we destroyed all the evidence you f.ucking mugs".