In a move that exposed tensions in the FIFA ethics team investigating 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding corruption, prosecutor Michael Garcia intensified his fight against secrecy rules which are keeping his reports sealed.
Garcia issued a statement on Wednesday calling for FIFA's executive committee to allow "appropriate publication" from the 430 pages of evidence reports submitted by his investigative team.
The ruling board chaired by FIFA President Sepp Blatter can meet the American lawyer's wish at a two-day meeting starting on Thursday.
Still, the timing of Garcia's request seemed a direct response to a statement issued hours earlier by FIFA on behalf of ethics judge Joachim Eckert.
In it, Eckert publicly handed full responsibility to Garcia for opening cases against FIFA officials under investigation for their conduct in the bid contests won by Russia and Qatar.
"Given the limited role ... Eckert envisions for the Adjudicatory Chamber, I believe it is now necessary for the FIFA Executive Committee to authorise the appropriate publication of the Report on the Inquiry into the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup Bidding Process," Garcia wrote.
The back-and-forth reveals how a corruption probe which could define FIFA's scandal-hit image and efforts to reform has intensified this month.
On September 5, Garcia sent his first-draft reports to Eckert, which both insist have been seen only by each other and their deputies, but no one at FIFA.
Last Friday, both appeared at a FIFA-hosted ethics conference and gave different views of the FIFA Code of Ethics confidentiality rules which bind their work.
Garcia said it was a "disservice" to football fans sceptical of FIFA that they might never be told which senior FIFA officials had been charged, and with which offences.
Eckert was content to abide by rules which would limit public disclosure to his judgments, expected around April next year.
With FIFA's reputation at stake in the case, reform-minded members of the 27-member board have backed Garcia, including vice presidents Jeffrey Webb of the Cayman Islands, Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein of Jordan and Jim Boyce of Northern Ireland.
"Publication would be consistent with statements made by a number of Executive Committee members, with the view recently expressed by Independent Governance Committee Chair Mark Pieth, and with the goals of the reform process," Garcia said Wednesday.
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