Ethics committee to look at English World Cup bid - but will they examine Russia and Spain as well?
LAST UPDATED 9:18 AM, MAY 18, 2010
Any hopes the FA had that the Lord Triesman saga would die a quick death have been dashed after Fifa announced it would investigate the claims made by the former head of England's 2018 World Cup bid made against Spain and Russia.
Fifa's ethics committee is to launch a probe into Triesman's comments and the FA has been told to provide a report on the matter. But it is unclear whether the governing body will just investigate the English bid and the conduct of Triesman (pictured above with David Beckham last week) or if it will actually look into the claims that the Labour peer appeared to make in the taped conversation with a former aide.
The former bid chairman suggested that Spain would drop out of the race to host the 2018 World Cup and support Russia's bid if Russia helped it to bribe referees at this year's tournament.
After the claims were made public in the Mail on Sunday Triesman quit as chairman of the bid and the FA, and apologies were sent to both Spain and Russia. However, the damage limitation exercise has not paid off and the probe into Triesman's comments is now likely to rumble on after the tournament in South Africa this summer.
Under Fifa rules bidding nations are not allowed to criticise rival campaigns, and to make matters worse for England it is the first time football's governing body has felt obliged to launch an inquiry into a bidding nation.
Fifa's general secretary Jerome Valcke, said the ethics committee would examine the alleged statements and ask the FA to provide a report "including Lord Triesman's position".
Russia showed no signs of letting the matter drop either. The
No comments:
Post a Comment