FIFA to publish report detailing 2018, 2022 World Cup bids

FIFA will publish a report into the 2018 Russia and 2022 Qatar World Cup bids amid allegations of corruption, the organization announced Friday. 

"We have always been determined that the truth should be known," president Sepp Blatter said in a statement. 

But the report is about history and I am focused on the future. We will not revisit the 2018 and 2022 vote and a report by independent, external legal experts ... supports the view that there are no legal grounds to revoke the Executive Committee’s decision on the award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. We are already in the process of incorporating recommendations made by independent experts including the Ethics Committee for how the FIFA World Cup selection process can be improved so that everyone can be confident that the 2026 bidding process will be fair, ethical and open.

The report was spearheaded by Michael Garcia, an American lawyer who resigned as FIFA's ethics prosecutor Wednesday.

Garcia said in a statement earlier in the week: 

(My) report identified serious and wide-ranging issues with the bidding and (World Cup host) selection process. (German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert's decision) made me lose confidence in the independence of the Adjudicatory Chamber, (but) it is the lack of leadership on these issues within FIFA that leads me to conclude that my role in this process is at an end.