FIFA’s report on Russia’s 2018 bidding dismisses Western media allegations — LOC chief

A recently published report of FIFA Ethics Committee’s Investigatory Chamber proves that Russia’s bidding committee made no violations whatsoever securing its right for hosting the 2017 Confederations Cup and the 2018 World Cup, Russia’s senior football executive told TASS on Tuesday.

The world’s governing football body, FIFA, published its report on Tuesday on its findings into allegations that the Russian side unduly influenced the bidding result for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

According to the report from FIFA: "the overall inquiry was led by Mr. Michael Garcia, independent Chairman of the Investigatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee and Dr Cornel Borbely, independent Deputy Chairman of the Investigatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee."

"Since Mr Garcia recused himself from the investigation of the Russia 2018 Bid Committee ("Russia Bid Committee"), the review of the Russia Bid Committee's conduct during the Bidding Process was conducted solely by Dr Cornel Borbely and all findings and conclusions in this report with respect to the activities of that team are his alone."

 

Alexei Sorokin, the secretary general of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) Russia-2018, said in an interview with TASS regarding the published report that: "It is good that the report of Garcia had been finally issued."

"We are glad that it had been done and there are absolutely no complaints in regard to us," Sorokin said.

"One should read the report’s conclusions regarding the Russian bid to see that all allegations on behalf of Western media are totally ungrounded," Sorokin added.

Russia won the bid to host the 2018 World Cup at the FIFA Congress in Guatemala on December 4, 2010. The victory came following a tight race against the bid from England, the joint bid from Portugal and Spain and the joint bid on behalf of Belgium and the Netherlands.

The country selected 11 host cities to be the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup and they are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.

The matches of the 2018 World Cup will be held between June 14 and July 15 at 12 stadiums located in the 11 mentioned above cities across Russia. Two of the stadiums are located in the Russian capital.