The soccer World Cups of 2018 and 2022 are set to go ahead in Russia and Qatar as planned after FIFA's ethics committee said on Thursday it could find no grounds for re-opening the controversial bidding process, reports GHN based on DW.
A report by the ethics committee of world governing body FIFA has confirmed that both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups will take place in Russia and Qatar respectively.
"The report identified certain occurrences that were suited to impair the integrity of the 2018/2022 World Cups bidding process," said Hans Joachim Eckert, the chairman of the ethic committee's adjudicatory chamber on Thursday in Zurich.
Still, Eckert said that these occurrences were not sufficient for the bidding process to be re-opened.
"The assessment of the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cups bidding process is therefore closed for the FIFA Ethics Committee," he said.
The report, conducted by ethics investigator Michael Garcia, criticized England's bid for the 2018 tournament for "inappropriate requests" from former CONCACAF president Jack Warner at the time, in what it said was "an apparent violation of bidding rules."
It also said that in Australia's bid for 2022 "there are certain indications of potentially problematic conduct of specific individuals in the light of relevant FIFA Ethics rules. "The occurrences at issue were...only of very limited scope," it added.
The ethics committee said that investigator Michael Garcia intended to open formal investigations against other individuals, who were not named.
Eckert confirmed in October that the full report by Garcia will not be released to the public.