World football's governing body has released an explosive report into what various countries did to win hosting rights for the FIFA World Cup in 2018 and 2022.
It paints a damning picture into the behind-the-scenes negotiations -- and does not spare Australia's bidding team from criticism.
But as Rashida Yosufzai reports, the document does not say Russia or Qatar should lose their right to stage the tournaments.
Almost three years ago, ethics investigator Michael Garcia was asked to check claims countries bidding to host the World Cup in 2018 and 2022 were influencing FIFA officials.
FIFA has finally decided to publish the findings of that report because they had been leaked to a German newspaper.
FIFA says in a statement it released the document for the sake of transparency.
"As the document has been illegally leaked to a German newspaper, the new chairpersons have requested the immediate publication of the full report .... in order to avoid the dissemination of any misleading information."
Several countries have come under scrutiny.
Transparency International's Peter Van Veen says some of the findings are concerning.
"A number of the indicators of money going to accounts of children, flights being paid for by the Qatar Foundation for jollies, those are all kind of examples that, in any other context, would be seen as graft or as, certainly, very questionable."
But the report does not suggest either Russia or Qatar should be stripped of hosting rights for 2018 and 2022, respectively.
On Russia, it says there was no evidence it tried to influence any members of FIFA's voting committee.
And on Qatar, it says the Gulf nation's culpability in the saga was lessened because most of the issues with its bid were uncovered when the country helped investigators.
But Mr Van Veen says, if corruption has been proven, the bids for the tournaments should be repeated.
"If there is significant evidence, or substantial evidence, of corruption in any kind of bidding process, then one needs to re-run the bidding process and disqualify the organisation country or whichever has won the bid. I don't see why that shouldn't be the case here. Five years is enough time to re-run the bid."
The 430-page document is also highly critical of Football Federation Australia's attempts to win the 2022 tournament.
It says Australia made "improper payments" to influence the vote of a FIFA executive member.
And it says a $500,000 payment to FIFA's former vice president Jack Warner was designed to influence his vote.
The report also alleges Australia tried to hide the role of German lobbyist Fedor Radmann because of his close relationship to German FIFA representative Franz Beckenbauer.
Mr Beckenbauer sat on the voting committee.
University of South Australia sports economist John Wilson says the revelations are not a surprise.
"The process by which World Cups are allocated is one that's really non-transparent, where we have a decision-making process where FIFA holds all the power in terms of who gets these events and, basically, it's very unclear on what criteria decisions are made. And so it's very common, in that sort of process, that you're going to have attempts to effectively influence various parties who will vote in that process."
Mr Wilson says all football federations, including Australia's, would have known such conduct would test the boundaries of acceptability.
"As a society, is this actually the sort -- and bearing in mind that taxpayer money often goes into the funding bids -- is this how we want decisions to be made as to where the World Cup is held? So even if everyone thought this was perfectly proper, should the best lobbyist be the best person who determines where the World Cup is held?"eld?
Football Federation Australia has been contacted for comment but offered none so far.
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