The integrity of FIFA's financial monitoring panel, which will assess a secret report into corruption, has been brought into question after a key member was charged with fraud in a non-football-related criminal investigation in the Cayman Islands.
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The FIFA ethics report into corruption in the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups will be independently reviewed by the chairman of the organisation's audit and compliance committee, Domenico Scala. The review of a third party follows a dispute between the investigator Michael Garcia and a FIFA ethics judge, Hans-Joachim Eckert over the accuracy of a 42-page summary of the full report of the investigation.
Scala will become the third independent assessor to review Garcia's 430-page report into alleged corruption and ethical violations and will decided whether the full report will be made available to the FIFA executive committee and other authorities. The FIFA audit and compliance committee's objectives state they shall "ensure the completeness and reliability of the financial accounting and review the external auditors' report at the request of the executive committee". However, integrity concerns of the unit were raised because a member, Canover Watson, now faces criminal proceedings in his native Cayman Islands after being charged with fraud, money laundering and breach of trust.
Watson was arrested in September after a probe into a 2010 contract to supply local hospitals with a card billing system found evidence of fraud. The 43-year-old was charged by the Cayman Islands anti-corruption unit on Thursday night. Watson was temporarily suspended by FIFA in September pending the criminal investigation.
It is not alleged that Scala had any involvement in the criminal investigation in the Cayman Islands, but Watson's charges are a blow to the ethical standards of the audit and compliance committee.
Despite the charges of a member of the committee, Garcia and Eckert welcomed the independent assessment of Scala and vowed to assist him with any further questioning.
"Both chairmen agreed that it is of major importance that the FIFA executive committee has the information necessary to evaluate which steps are required based on the work done by the FIFA ethics committee," Garcia and Eckert said in a statement.
A dispute between Garcia and Eckert arose after the FIFA ethics judge published a summary of the report that condemned Australia's and England's World Cup bids while it cleared Qatar and Russia's bidding committee of any wrongdoing. Garcia's 430-page report dealt with the bidding process, but additional reports into ethic violations by specific individuals within FIFA are expected to be submitted. Garcia initiated proceedings, but it is not expected the ensuing reports will be made public by FIFA.
