FIFA lodges criminal complaint over 2018, 2022 WC bids

PARIS, Nov 19 (AFP): Football's world governing body FIFA has lodged a criminal complaint with the Swiss attorney general over "possible misconduct" by individuals in connection with the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
It follows a recommendation by FIFA's ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert as part of his final summary of the Garcia investigation into the controversial awarding of the World Cups to Qatar and Russia.
"This criminal complaint has been lodged today," FIFA said in a statement.
"The subject of the criminal complaint is the possible misconduct of individual persons in connection with the awarding of the hosting rights of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups investigated by Michael Garcia, chairman of the investigatory chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee.
"In particular there seem to be grounds for suspicion that, in isolated cases, international transfers of assets with connections to Switzerland took place, which merit examination by the criminal prosecution authorities."
Michael Garcia, a former New York federal prosecutor, spent 18 months investigating the bidding process for the two tournaments.
FIFA last week published a resume of Garcia's report and cleared Qatar and Russia of corruption and ruled out a re-vote for the tournaments despite widespread allegations of wrongdoing.